Learn Chinese for Free—Lesson 31
Today's Chinese characters:
父母亲
The other Chinese characters contained in this lesson have already been studied previously. You can just click on them and go back to the corresponding lesson.
妈妈 is the colloquial word for 'mother' (mummy, mum, ma). Today you're going to learn how to address her, and your father, in a more formal way.
| Character Knowledge Meter |
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31.8%
Today with this lesson your knowledge of Chinese characters will reach 31.8% of all the Chinese language usage! |
Characters' Essentials
Description and Examples
Dialogue 26
Welcome back our dear number one most frequently used Chinese character!
Let's see how it's used in today's dialogue.
我是你们儿子的朋友
First of all, a little review: 的 is used between a modifier (before 的) and a noun (after 的). A modifier qualifies or modifies a noun and the modified noun is called headword or central word. Sometimes, the structural particle 的 is needed between the modifier and the noun; at other times, however, it is not required. sometimes: MODIFIER + NOUN at other times: MODIFIER + 的 + NOUN When a personal pronoun is used as modifier and the headword is a word for relatives, parts of the body or units or collectives to which the pronoun belongs, the structural particle 的 may be omitted. |
In our sentence, 的 is omitted when it's said "你们儿子", because we have here a personal pronoun used as modifier and the headword is a word for relatives.
| 你们: | Modifier |
| 儿子: | Headword |
As you can see below, however, when this pronoun-headword construction itself is used as modifier, 的 cannot be omitted.
你们儿子的朋友
| 你们儿子: | Modifier |
| 朋友: | Headword |
In English we'd say "the friend of your son" or "your son's friend".
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