的 (de): possessive particle (of; 's)

Meanings

1 possessive particle (of; 's)
2 attributive particle (linking modifier to noun)
3 nominalizing particle (forms a noun phrase from a verb or adjective)
4 sentence-final particle (asserts or emphasizes)

Characters

的

de

possessive / attributive particle

Examples

我的书。

Wǒ de shū.

My book.

她是一个很聪明的人。

Tā shì yí gè hěn cōngmíng de rén.

She is a very smart person.

卖菜的来了。

Mài cài de lái le.

The vegetable seller is here. (lit. 'the one who sells vegetables')

Tips

grammar

的 is the most common character in Chinese — roughly 4% of all written text. It hooks a modifier onto a noun: 我的 (my), 红的 (the red one), 大大的 (big and wide), 吃的 (something to eat). At the end of a sentence it adds a tone of assertion: 我会的 (I will, you'll see).

mistakes

Three particles share the sound de but differ in role: 的 links modifier to noun (我的车), 得 links verb to result or degree (跑得快), 地 links adverb to verb (慢慢地走). Mix these up and the sentence still sounds the same — but native readers spot it instantly in writing.

Components

radical

白 bái

white; clear

Left white radical (Kangxi #106) — originally a thumbnail or grain of rice, the prototype of pale and plain. Indexes 的 alongside 百 (hundred), 皇 (emperor), 皆 (all). The semantic link to the modern grammar particle is faint: 的 was hijacked from the older 'bright / target / aim' senses for purely phonetic reasons, but the white-radical home address is preserved for lookup.

phonetic

勺 sháo

ladle; spoon (phonetic)

Right phonetic 勺 — pictograph of a small ladle with a drop inside. Supplied the original sound (sháo drifted to dí/dì/dī, then reduced further to toneless de when 的 took over as the all-purpose grammar particle around the Yuan dynasty). Same-phonetic family: 约, 钓, 灼, 酌. On this page that grammaticalised toneless de is the focus; the older 'aim / target' meaning lives on a separate dì page.