What is the difference between 總是 and 一直?
I understand that uses of 總是 often include habitual behavior, so to me it seems that you can sometimes use 總是 when you can't use 一直, but it seems like anytime you can use 一直, you can also use 總是. I might think this because of English uses of the word "always".

For example, if I want to say "He is always hungry.", which is better:
他一直很餓。 -OR- 他總是很餓。
He is constantly hungry. -OR- He is always hungry.
In English both are OK. How about in Chinese?

Question

What is the difference between 總是 and 一直?
I understand that uses of 總是 often include habitual behavior, so to me it seems that you can sometimes use 總是 when you can't use 一直, but it seems like anytime you can use 一直, you can also use 總是.  I might think this because of English uses of the word "always".

For example, if I want to say "He is always hungry.", which is better:
他一直很餓。 -OR-  他總是很餓。
He is constantly hungry.  -OR-  He is always hungry.
In English both are OK.  How about in Chinese?

Answer

yes,in most situation, we can use "一直“ or ”总是“ to express the same means 。
But ,there have different in emotional...

we say "总是” to express always do the same thing. most to forces on" what the people do "
"一直“ we want to say a  "state ". forces on "what kind of state  the people keeping ”

他总是很饿：  nomatter how much  he ate,or maybe just finished  meal,he always feel hungry.（we  say that,want to express he already did something,but seems like it didn't work on him..)

他一直很饿：this we just want to say" he is hungry"(this state). before  he was hungry,now he is hungry and he will hungry ..forces on to express "keep this state"..if he eat or not,(this action), we dont care or maybe we dont know

Answer

他总是很饿 is better than 他一直很饿。 But in most cases, the two is almost the same. No need to pay attention to the trifling differences between such words. when you do enough reading, those won't be any problem.

Answer

Yes, They are the same thing.

Answer

To me  these two expressions are nearly the same....just tell the differences according to different context.

I think the way people say it (different tones or facial expression...)would change its meaning. Like teasing someone who feels hungry so often, I will probably say it in a funny way. If  I wanna show sympathy to someone by saying 他一直很餓, maybe have a sigh and give a serious look.... Anyway there's no big difference, they are exchangeable in most cases.

Answer

总是 means always，一直 means keep doing