In this series of videos,
we're going to teach you some Chinese characters
that even native speakers will often get wrong.
And in this episode, we're going to focus on 的, 得, and 地.
We are mostly going to speak in Chinese for your listening practice
But you can choose subtitles below.
The first group of words we'll look at is “de”.
The killer “de”.
It’s a common mistake in Taiwan.
Yeah.
We're going to look at the first "de".
The first "de" is báibù de.
This "de" is usually used
for saying "mine", "yours", "his/hers".
It marks possession.
This "de" is special because
it has nothing to do with verbs or other parts of speech.
It only relates to nouns.
For example, "Wǒ de māma hěn ǎi". (My mom is short.)
It expresses possession. It is "your" mom.
Or "Táiběi de fēngjǐng hěn měi". (The scenery in Taipei is beautiful".)
The scenery is in Taipei, so it belongs to Taipei.
Jīntiān de tiānqì hěn chā. (The weather is bad today.)
Yes, great, "The weather is bad today".
I'm a good student, praised by the teacher!
OK. Let's look at the second "de".
The second "de" is chìbù de.
This "de' is related to verbs.
It is used for describing how an action is performed.
Between the verb and the complement,
we use the chìbù de.
That's quite clear.
For example, "Tā de Zhōngwén shuō de hěn hǎo".
He/she speaks Chinese very well.
Nǐ jīntiān chuān de hěn hǎo kàn. (You're dressed very nicely today.)
Thank you.
Or you can also say
Tā de Zhōngwén xiě de hěn piāoliang. (His Chinese is written very beautifully.)
English native speakers often say
Tā de xiě hěn piāoliang.
His writing is good.
Yeah.
But it doesn't work in Chinese.
We should say "Tā xiě de hěn piāoliang."
Or you can say "His characters..."
His characters are written very beautifully.
Yes.
[speakers slower] Tā de zì xiě de hěn piāoliang. (His characters are written very beautifully.)
Yes. If you translate directly from English,
it is grammatically correct in Chinese,
but it sounds very weird.
Let's look at the third "de".
It's the one I never use.
Because it's fine if you don't use it.
I see.
I've always thought that
this "de" only appears in lyrics.
In karaoke, all the "de" is changed to this one.
This is my understanding.
Why do you have to change all the "de"
-to this one in karaoke? -I don't know.
Because this "de" only appears in lyrics.
It's because this "de" can be omitted.
We don't usually say this "de" when speaking.
So when do we use it?
This "de" is used as an adverb.
So when talking about an action,
you use it to describe that action.
Please give me an example. I still don't understand.
For example,"Nǐ mànman de chī". (Eat slowly.)
Which means...
The "de" that goes between the stative verb and the verb
is the tǔ bù de.
But when we usually speak Chinese,
this "de" is often omitted.
Oh...
I'm looking at her sentence examples.
She wrote "nǐ mànman de chī."
But we usually say "nǐ mànman chī."
Yes, because omitting "de" works as well.
As this "de" is not usually used,
people don't really know what it is.
I think this is a good explanation.
As a native speaker, I think I understand better now.
Tā de Zhōngwén shuō de hěn hǎo (He speaks Chinese very well)
cannot become "Tā de Zhōngwén shuō hěn hǎo".
Yes, yes, yes.
But "mànman de chī" can become "mànman chī".
At least this will help me reduce my typos.
Just remember, the "de" that can be omitted
is the tǔ bù de.
All Chinese native speakers should watch this video.
Everyone should watch it.
You'll understand right away.
True.
For example, "Wǒ dàkǒu dàkǒu de chī."
I ravenously ate.
Yeah. But this "de" is very special.
If the adverb is a single character,
we usually repeat it.
For example, "màn" is a single character,
but we usually say "mànman"
-Oh... -We don't say "Nǐ màn chī".
-It's weird. -I see.
We say "Nǐ mànman (de) chī".
-Yeah, true. -In most cases
single-character adverbs are used in repetition.
There are some exceptions,
but they are usually used in repetition.
For example, we can also say
Dàshēng de shuōhuà.
To speak loudly.
"Dàshēng de" is the adverb.
So if it's "Shuō de hěn dàshēng" (Your speaking is loud),
we use the chìbù de.
Yes, yes, yes.
Because you're describing his speaking.
But if you say "Dà shēng de shuō huà",
you're describing how he speaks.
So we say "Dà shēng de shuō huà".
In this case, we use tǔ bù de.
I think I understand now.
Feel free to check my mistakes in the future.
If you spot your friends making a typo,
you can correct them straight away.
Send them this video.
Tell them "Watch and learn!"
We hope you can feel our passion for language learning...
Our passion for correcting people's typos.
Wrong! You're wrong! Everything is wrong!
Are there some words that you often use incorrectly
or see others using incorrectly?
Leave us a comment to let us know.
See you in the next video. Bye!
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