What does 都挺 indicate here?l

Question

What does 都挺 in this sentence mean/indicate?

我一直都挺想学滑板的

The whole sentence is translated as : "I've always wanted to learn skateboard(ing)". I then opened my online dictionary and tried to look for the meaning of each word, especially 都挺. However, it turned out that 都挺 isn't one whole word because each character of 都挺 appeared as independent character. Unlike 一直, 都 and 挺 aren't tied together.

Then I tried to translate 都挺 in Google Translate and the word "quite" appeared as a result. But the thing is, doesn't 挺 already mean "quite"? Then what does 都 here mean?

Plus, why is "一直" which has the meaning of "always", used together with "都挺" which means "quite" here? I find it strange because I had never seen both words used together in a sentence before.

Answer 1

In reading Chinese, we are always faced with the difficulty of correctly grouping characters. Here the correct pairing is not 都挺。 Rather, you should view 一直都 as one group, meaning all along and 挺 as a modification to 想。The meaning of 挺 comes very close to 很.

Examples：

我一直在等你/I’ve been waiting for you all along.

今天挺冷。/It’s pretty cold today.

I would say there is virtually no difference between 一直 and 一直都. The choice is guided by rhythm.

Answer 2

挺 is an adv in this context and means very; quite; pretty; rather. In this context, 挺 modifies the verb 想学. 挺想学 means quite want to learn. Another example, 我挺喜欢她的: I quite like her.

都 here is used for emphasis. You can probably use always, all along, etc. to interpret. Compare 我一直在想你(I have been thinking of you) to 我一直都在想你(I have always been thinking of you).

Answer 3

1. 都 means entirely here. So 一直都 is the same meaning of 一直 in this sentence but the demand is much stronger.
2. 挺　means very, quite.

you can actually eliminate 都,挺,的 in this sentence, 我一直想學滑板 and people can still understand what you are saying.

Hope it helps a bit. 　

Answer 4

挺 is a tricky word. It make people feel "very but not quite" and you should expected "but" after sentence. If no sentence after it, you might ask for "why not?".

when sentence has 挺 as adv., It might mean "has high intention to do something but not enough motivation to do it because always has something stop me to do it."

 我挺喜欢她的:I quite like her.(but I do not have motivation to go next step of relationship with her, because there something stop my motivation.)

if 挺 is before adjective, It make people feel "very but not quite, something off".

她挺美的：she is very beautiful (but not quite, something off. for some reason, I just do not like her beauty)
他挺坏的： he is pretty bad.(but not quite bad, something off. for some reason, I just like this feeling)