“Sometimes” vs. “Occasionally”

Question

I am building a survey. I found one that uses this scale for asking about frequency of doing something:

1.Very often

2.Sometimes

3.Occasionally

4.Rarely

5.Never

I want to change it to:

1.Always

2.Sometimes

3.Rarely

4.Never

Does the second list of choices do the same purpose of the first list?

I think that sometimes and occasionally are almost the same (especially in my language as I am a non-native speaker and need to translate this survey to my language). Am I right that sometimes and occasionally are the same in English language and these two choices can be merged with sometimes?

The other thing, is very often equivalent to always? Again, because I will need to translate these answers to my language. I find very often is same as always (at least in my language). So can I replace very often with always?

Answer 1

Very often is not the same as always. Always is every time, while very often is most of the time, in the best way I can rephrase it. Sometimes and occasionally however mean about the same thing, it should be fine to remove one.