的simply turns a verb into an adjective clause. We do the same thing in English. In the translation
The story books they read are very popular.
The two words “they read” is actually functioning as an adjective to describe “books”, so it’s called an adjective clause. Usually, when an adjective phrase comes after the subject, we put a “that”at the front to mark it—in this case it would be “the books that they read”—so think of 的in this construction as functioning like the “that, as a marker.
(It’s not wrong that they left out the “that”in English, but it’s helpful to imagine that it’s there so you can have a more word for word translation from the Chinese.)
Only you can’t leave 的 out. And in Chinese, the attributive adjectives always come before the noun they’re describing, so “她们看的”has to come before
I think it’s helping me to imagine the sentence first without the verb, 他们的故事书很热门， their storybook is popular, then adding in the verb, 他们看的故事书很热门， the story book that they are reading is popular for some reason that makes it a lot easier to understand
I’ve read ur comment like 10 times and I still don’t understand lol, are you saying in the original sentence or in 他们的故事书很热门? Cause that was the whole point of me removing the verb in order for it to make sense, are you saying in the original sentence 看 isn’t a verb?
Haha sorry, I don’t think this is a Chinese grammar issue it might be an English grammar issue.
I’m talking about the original English sentence. The “they read” part of the sentence serves the same grammatical purpose as the word “story”—they are both meant to describe the subject “books” and are therefore both adjectives.
“They read” is a phrase and therefore we call it an adjective clause. Because of this function, “read” cannot be called a verb in the context of this sentence does that make sense? It serves the function of an adjective.
And in this case the parallels to Chinese are one to one. Which means “她们看的” is no longer a subject verb clause but an adjective clause. And in Chinese, it’s necessary to mark this shift with a 的
It's "the story books which they read", the entirety of "她们看的故事书" is the topic of the sentence, "很热门" is the comment, i.e. it's describing the books that they read.
The "看的" is adding additional information to 故事书 by giving additional information about the books being described, very similar to a relative clause in English. This form is really common.
to understand this better, you have to start studying the components of a sentence in Chinese.
主语 subject
谓语 predicate
宾语 object
定语 attribute
状语 adverbial
补语 there may not be such thing in the English language
when these are taught in primary schools , pupils do exercises such as breaking down a sentence to a minimal while maintaining it core meaning.
with "的", i would break down the sentence its minimal to 书热门 or 故事书热门 i think it could be right as well.
without “的”, i would then break it down to 看书热门 or 她们看书热门。without context, it's not possible to say for sure it's reading books in general or people like to watching these two particular girls reading books. the latter one would be weird and creepy but in theory it could happen.
的 is being used not as a possessive or a nominal expression as it is usually used but for a relative clause I’m pretty sure.
For instance, in the sentence "他买的苹果很好吃", which means "The apples he bought are delicious", "他买的" (he bought) comes before "苹果" (apples) to modify it. This showcases the modifier-before-modified rule in Chinese grammar.
This helped can't lie just realised I have to refresh my grammatic terms for both English and Mandarin 😅. Literally forgot what an adjective, adverts etc were had to search it up
的simply turns a verb into an adjective clause. We do the same thing in English. In the translation
The two words “they read” is actually functioning as an adjective to describe “books”, so it’s called an adjective clause. Usually, when an adjective phrase comes after the subject, we put a “that”at the front to mark it—in this case it would be “the books that they read”—so think of 的in this construction as functioning like the “that, as a marker.
(It’s not wrong that they left out the “that”in English, but it’s helpful to imagine that it’s there so you can have a more word for word translation from the Chinese.)
Only you can’t leave 的 out. And in Chinese, the attributive adjectives always come before the noun they’re describing, so “她们看的”has to come before
I think it’s helping me to imagine the sentence first without the verb, 他们的故事书很热门， their storybook is popular, then adding in the verb, 他们看的故事书很热门， the story book that they are reading is popular for some reason that makes it a lot easier to understand
Just a note, “read” is not a verb anymore in English or in Chinese. The only verb in this sentence is “is”
I’ve read ur comment like 10 times and I still don’t understand lol, are you saying in the original sentence or in 他们的故事书很热门? Cause that was the whole point of me removing the verb in order for it to make sense, are you saying in the original sentence 看 isn’t a verb?
Haha sorry, I don’t think this is a Chinese grammar issue it might be an English grammar issue.
I’m talking about the original English sentence. The “they read” part of the sentence serves the same grammatical purpose as the word “story”—they are both meant to describe the subject “books” and are therefore both adjectives.
“They read” is a phrase and therefore we call it an adjective clause. Because of this function, “read” cannot be called a verb in the context of this sentence does that make sense? It serves the function of an adjective.
And in this case the parallels to Chinese are one to one. Which means “她们看的” is no longer a subject verb clause but an adjective clause. And in Chinese, it’s necessary to mark this shift with a 的
It's "the story books which they read", the entirety of "她们看的故事书" is the topic of the sentence, "很热门" is the comment, i.e. it's describing the books that they read.
The "看的" is adding additional information to 故事书 by giving additional information about the books being described, very similar to a relative clause in English. This form is really common.
without "的", the sentence could then be interpreted as them reading story books is popular. not the books but the behaviour/hobby/activity.
with "的" the subject in that sentence is "故事书"，or broken down even more, just "书"。 “她们看” and "故事" are attributive/attributes。
to understand this better, you have to start studying the components of a sentence in Chinese.
主语 subject
谓语 predicate
宾语 object
定语 attribute
状语 adverbial
补语 there may not be such thing in the English language
when these are taught in primary schools , pupils do exercises such as breaking down a sentence to a minimal while maintaining it core meaning.
with "的", i would break down the sentence its minimal to 书热门 or 故事书热门 i think it could be right as well.
without “的”, i would then break it down to 看书热门 or 她们看书热门。without context, it's not possible to say for sure it's reading books in general or people like to watching these two particular girls reading books. the latter one would be weird and creepy but in theory it could happen.
You gave me an idea with what you said, 他们的故事书很热门 makes it a lot easier to understand the original sentence 他们看的故事书很热门
的 acts as an attribute marker.
她们看 is a relative clause, so we use 的 to mark it, as in noun + 的 or adj + 的。
For more, see here.
Thanks for the reference
I'm sorry, I can't help you because I'm a complete beginner. What app/website is this?
It’s just Anki, I’m using a premade deck
Thank you
It makes the verb part of the subject of the sentence in this case
他们看的电视... (etc)- the tv shows they watch (are fun and exciting)
他们吃的米饭... (etc)- the rice they eat (is fluffy and deliciou)
Without the 的 it would have "they" as the subject of the sentence, and "watch"" be the main verb of the sentence.
的 is being used not as a possessive or a nominal expression as it is usually used but for a relative clause I’m pretty sure.
Here’s a better explanation I found
This helped can't lie just realised I have to refresh my grammatic terms for both English and Mandarin 😅. Literally forgot what an adjective, adverts etc were had to search it up
It's like relative pronouns in English.
他们看的故事书很热门 The story books that they read are very popular.
Another example: 我喜欢的手机好贵 The phone which I like is very expensive.