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steven (Offline)
JF Old Timer
 
Posts: 544
Join Date: Apr 2010
10-12-2010, 11:48 AM

Quote:
Originally Posted by KyleGoetz View Post
Just ときどきがっこうにいきます would be fine without the わたし.
I'm not a native, but if you HAD to use tokidoki, I totally agree with this.

However, I'm sometimes not so sure about using tokidoki at all. While I love using "sometimes" in English, I don't feel that the Japanese-English dictionary equivilant gets nearly as much usage. I think that words like たまに, だいたい, ふつうに, etc get way more use... there meanings might not be the exact same as English's "Sometimes", but the usage is quite similar.

I might be crazy, but judging by the way that I've mostly heard tokidoki used, I'd say that it's better suited as like a one word response to a question.

ex)
Q:最近学校行っている?
A:ま、時々やね

or something like that.

Instead, "once a week" or something of that ilk sounds more natural.

週1回学校に行っている

That's just my experience though. I distinctly remember learning 時々(tokidoki) very early on and realizing that people seldom use it (like the word "seldom"... saying "hardly ever" would be a more natural choice). I'd like to hear what natives think about that idea though.

Last edited by steven : 10-12-2010 at 11:51 AM.
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