{"id":182019,"date":"2022-07-11T17:27:07","date_gmt":"2022-07-11T21:27:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.fluentu.com\/blog\/learn\/chinese-de\/"},"modified":"2025-01-06T02:47:08","modified_gmt":"2025-01-06T07:47:08","slug":"chinese-de","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.fluentu.com\/blog\/chinese\/chinese-de\/","title":{"rendered":"The Chinese De: A Simple Guide on Using \u7684, \u5f97 and \u5730"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Chinese de<\/em> isn’t just some simple utterance, but rather, an important and nuanced element of Chinese grammar<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u7684<\/strong>\u00a0(de),<\/em> \u5f97<\/strong> (de)<\/em> and \u5730<\/strong> (de)<\/em> are known as \u7ed3\u6784\u52a9\u8bcd<\/strong> (ji\u00e9g\u00f2u zh\u00f9c\u00ed)<\/em> \u2014 structural particles, which show the relationship between sentence elements.<\/p>\n

Let’s go over the differences between \u7684, \u5f97 and \u5730, each of their uses and example sentences.<\/p>\n

[fluentu-toc]<\/p>\n

What Is the Difference Between \u7684, \u5f97 and \u5730?<\/h2>\n

You could say \u7684,\u00a0 \u5f97 and \u5730 are like\u00a0their, they\u2019re\u00a0<\/em>and there<\/em> in English. Even though they sound the same (the de<\/em> sounds neutral and doesn’t use any of the four Chinese tones<\/a>), they all have completely different meanings and aren’t interchangeable.<\/p>\n

The main differences are that \u7684 is used with nouns, \u5f97 is used with verbs and \u5730 is mainly used to modify an adjective<\/strong> (like giving it the \u201c-ly\u201d in English) to transform it into an adverb.
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

How Are the De<\/em> Particles Used in Chinese?<\/h2>\n

\u7684 indicates possession, modifies nouns and emphasizes certainty<\/h3>\n

As a structural particle, \u7684 has two main functions. The first one is that it’s used to indicate possession.<\/strong><\/p>\n

For example, if you want to say that something belongs to \u6211 (w\u01d2<\/em>) \u2014 I, me, simply add \u7684 after the pronoun<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

\u6211 \u7684 (w\u01d2 de)<\/em> \u2014 My, mine<\/p>\n

You can also use the formula owner + \u7684 + object being owned <\/strong>to indicate possession like so:<\/p>\n

\u6211\u7684<\/strong>\u732b\u5f88\u53ef\u7231\u3002 (w\u01d2 de<\/strong> m\u0101o h\u011bn k\u011b \u00e0i.)<\/em> \u2014 My cat is very cute.<\/p>\n

On the other hand, \u7684 isn’t always necessary to indicate possession.<\/p>\n

When there are at least a couple of degrees of possession, \u7684 is only used once to avoid repetition. So rather than translating “my brother’s girlfriend” as \u6211\u7684\u5f1f\u5f1f\u7684\u5973\u670b\u53cb (w\u01d2 de d\u00ecdi de n\u01da p\u00e9ngyou)<\/em>, you would just say:<\/p>\n

\u6211\u5f1f\u5f1f\u7684<\/strong>\u5973\u670b\u53cb\u5f88\u6f02\u4eae\u3002 (w\u01d2 d\u00ecdi de n\u01da p\u00e9ngyou h\u011bn pi\u00e0oliang.)<\/em> \u2014 My little brother\u2019s girlfriend is gorgeous.<\/p>\n

\u7684 can also be eliminated when used to indicate close personal relationships or body parts.<\/p>\n

\u6211\u7238\u7238\u5988\u5988\u6b63\u5728\u5ea6\u5047\u3002 (w\u01d2 b\u00e0ba m\u0101ma\u00a0 zh\u00e8ngz\u00e0i d\u00f9ji\u00e0.)<\/em> \u2014 My mom and dad are on vacation.<\/p>\n

\u4ed6\u5934\u53d1\u592a\u957f\u4e86\u3002 (t\u0101 t\u00f3ufa t\u00e0i ch\u01ceng le.)<\/em> \u2014 His hair is too long.<\/p>\n

The possessive \u7684 is demonstrated in the video below:<\/p>\n

<\/lite-youtube><\/p>\n

This clip shows how straightforward it is to use \u7684.<\/p>\n

For a better viewing experience, you can also check out this video on the digital language learning platform FluentU<\/strong><\/a>.

FluentU<\/strong> takes authentic videos\u2014like music videos, movie trailers, news and inspiring talks\u2014and turns them into personalized language learning lessons.<\/p>\r\n

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You can try FluentU for free for 2 weeks. Check out the website or download the iOS app<\/a> or Android app.<\/a><\/p>\r\n

P.S. Click here to take advantage of our current sale! (Expires at the end of this month.)<\/a><\/i>\r\n<\/p>\r\n

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