的

of, 's: ties a description to a noun

No. 1 most used · 4.2% of everyday spoken Chinese: about 1 character in every 24.

Also read: dí 的确, dì 目的

How it's built

• 白white
• 勺ladle

A way to remember it

The white (白) ladle (勺) is mine: 的 says whose, or what kind.

Words

• 真的

  zhēn de

  really; truly; indeed; real; true; genuine; (math.) proper
• 的话

  de huà

  if (coming after a conditional clause)
• 别的

  bié de

  else; other
• 的确

  dí què

  really; indeed
• 目的

  mù dì

  purpose; aim; goal; target; objective
• 说真的

  shuō zhēn de

  to tell the truth; honestly; in fact

Sentences

• 不要小看我的力量。

  bú yào xiǎo kàn wǒ de lì liang

  Don't underestimate my power.
• 不要相信他说的话。

  bú yào xiāng xìn tā shuō de huà

  Don't believe what he says.
• 今天也是我的生日。

  jīn tiān yě shì wǒ de shēng rì

  Today is my birthday, too.
• 今天是美好的一天。

  jīn tiān shì měi hǎo de yì tiān

  Today is a beautiful day.

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How often characters are written: wordfreq by Robyn Speer, CC BY-SA 4.0, with data from Google Books Ngrams and SUBTLEX by Marc Brysbaert and others. Meanings: CC-CEDICT, CC BY-SA 4.0. Sentences: Tatoeba, CC BY 2.0 FR. How often they're said: FrequencyWords and OPUS, from OpenSubtitles.