Can tokidoki only be used in a negative sentence?


I heard that ときどき can only be used in an affirmative sentence, and never in a
negative sentence. Is that true?

If anyone could please provide an example of ときどき in a negative sentence, that
would be great too!




The nature of the word "sometimes" implies both a positive and negative side
to it. Take the following sentence:

> Sometimes I go out for a walk.  
>  ときどき散歩にでかける。

This means that sometimes you do walk, but implicitly, sometimes you don't.
Even though the verb is in the affirmative, the sentence is partly positive
and partly negative.

This gives us a little flexibility with the verb, because it will be correct
in either the positive or negative. By default, people will usually stick with
positive, but occasionally there is a good reason to use negative, such as
emphasis on the negativity part. In the
[link](http://jp.yamaha.com/products/network/solution/trouble_shooting-
wlan_occasionally/) macraf gave in the comments, for example:

> 症状：時々つながらない  
>  Symptom: sometimes doesn't connect

The negative is used with ときどき here to emphasize the fact that is sometimes is
_not_ connecting. The affirmative is fine grammatically, but 「時々つながる」doesn't
make much sense it context, as doesn't really sound like a real problem for a
troubleshooting page.

