A Simple, Quick and Clear but In-detail Explanation of the 3 “de”

(three Chinese basic words 的de、得de、地de)

Dear Grace,

I woke up suddenly this morning when I recalled the talking between us and thought that I should write an article in English on the explanation of the 3 “de”, showing the complexity and simpleness of a language.

“的de 得de 地de” are three Chinese basic words, because of that they are not only particles but also meaningful words.

Giving a quick idea, “的de 得de 地de” are particles when put together for comparing, their quick explanation are like “-’s”、“so, that”、“-ly” in English, answering Whose, So what (the result) and How. For example,

1. 我的书 (my book), 玛吉的笔（Maggie’s pan）, 都是他们的（All are theirs）

2. 说得好，大家觉得很满意。（You talked so well, all of us have a feeling that we are satisfied.）

3. 怎么说好呢？慢慢地说吧！（How to say it? Do it slowly!）

Simply speaking, “的de 得de 地de” are also the meaningful words. Being words, they can be the different ones as pronoun-phrase, noun, verb, adverb, modal particle, etc. And of course they have different pronunciations respectively.

If we have enough time to learn it, we can

Talk on it in-detail, these words have respectively different expressions:

1. as pronoun-phrase 的 (de) can be constructed to be the possessive case of nouns, f.g. 这些东西全是学生的 (These are all belongings of student’s.);

2. as modal particle, 的 (de) can be put at the end of a sentence to give emphasis, e.g. 是的 (Yes, it is.)，我真的喜欢它的 (I did like it.0);

3. as noun, 的 has to be pronounced “dì” with meaning “target” “aim”, e.g. 我们的目标(our aim), 有的放矢 (Arrow while the target is there.);

4. as adverb, 的 has a second tone (dí) in 的确 (díquè), it means “really”, e.g. 我的确是个语言教师 (I am really a language teacher.);

5. as a verb, 得 (dé) means “get”, e.g. 他得到大家赞扬 (He gets praises from all of us.);

6. as verb, 得 (děi) also has an other meaning “have to”, e.g. 你得赶快去，否则来不急了 (You have to hurry up, or you can not catch it.);

7. as noun, 地 (dì) means “ground”, e.g. 大地 (the grand ground, earth), 地方 (local, space);

8. as noun in phrase, 大地 (dàdì) can have a meaning of Mother, e.g. 大地是万物的母亲 (The earth is the mother of all things on earth.); 低地 (dīdì) means “lowland, Netherlands”, e.g. Netherland, Belgium and Luxembourg is the Low Countries.

So, we know it now by reading this short article that words are words in grammar, and words are words in usage when used in different contexts (language environments). They are in-sentence words.