So to add to the confusion of homophones in Mandarin, one of the most common sounds has three different characters with different meanings.
The best explanation I could find on the net was from the TutorMing site.
I'm going to repeat the salient points here, but with some changes in terminology that I hope will make things a bit easier to understand.
There are three characters that are pronounced "de" (no tone, but with one exception I will come to later). They are 的, 得 and 地.
Broadly speaking,
A. 的 de qualifies nouns
B. 得 de qualifies verbs
C. 地 de qualifies adjectives
There may be more than one way to qualify a noun, a verb, or an adjective, so let's look at that next.
A1. 的 de as a possessive qualifier for nouns (See my previous post on this):
我 的 书 wǒ de shū ("my book")
A2. 的 de as an attributive qualifier for nouns:
a. 红色 的 书 hóngsè de shū ("red book", literally "red colour-ed book")
b. 英文 说 的 人 yīngwén shuō de rén ("English-speaking people", literally "English speak-ing people")
B1. 得 de as an adverbial qualifier for verbs:
a. 他 说 中文 得 很好 tā shuō zhōngwén de hěn hǎo ("He speaks Chinese (de) very well")
This adverbial qualifier can also be attached to comparisons:
b. 冬天 里 北京 比 上海 冷 得 多 dōngtiān lǐ běijīng bǐ shànghǎi lěng de duō ("In winter, Beijing is much colder than Shanghai", literally "In winter, Beijing compared to Shanghai cold (de) much").
B2. 得 déi as a "must" qualifier for verbs:
我们 得 买 票 wǒmen déi mǎi piào ("We must buy tickets"). Here, 得 is actually pronounced déi, not de
C. 地 de as an adverbial qualifier for adjectives:
她 高兴 地 笑 了 tā gāoxìng de xiào le ("She smiled happily", literally, "She happy (de) smiled")
As an exercise for myself, I thought up three ways to say the same thing, using each of the three "de"s:
1. 我 能 说 流利 的 中文 wǒ néng shuō liúlì de zhōngwén ("I can speak fluent Chinese")
2. 我 能 说 中文 得 流利 wǒ néng shuō zhōngwén dé liúlì ("I can speak Chinese fluently")
3. 我 能 流利 地 说 中文 wǒ néng liúlì de shuō zhōngwén ("I can speak Chinese fluently")
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