Attributive (Relative) Clauses with 的, in Depth

You already know 的 from possessives (我的书, "my book") and from simple adjective phrases (好看的电影, "a good-looking film"). But 的 can do much more than that. It can attach an entire clause to a noun, the way "that," "who," and "which" work in English relative clauses. This is one of the most important structural tools in Chinese, and once you understand it, a huge range of sentences becomes readable and writable.

The basic idea

In English, a relative clause follows the noun it modifies: "the book that I bought," "the person who called me." In Chinese, the modifier always comes before the noun, and 的 sits between the modifier and the noun it describes.

[Modifier] + 的 + [Noun]

This is the same position as a simple adjective:

• 好看的电影 -- a good-looking film (adjective + 的 + noun)
• 我买的书 -- the book I bought (clause + 的 + noun)
• 昨天打电话给我的人 -- the person who called me yesterday (longer clause + 的 + noun)

The noun being described always comes last. Everything that describes it stacks up in front, and 的 closes off the modifier before the noun appears.

The object becomes the head noun

In English, "the book that I bought" makes it clear that "book" is the object of "bought." Chinese works the same way but without any relative pronoun. The noun simply moves to the end, after 的, and the clause that used to contain it is placed before 的 without any placeholder.

• 我买了一本书。(Wǒ mǎi le yī běn shū.) -- I bought a book.
• 我买的书 (wǒ mǎi de shū) -- the book I bought

The 书 in the second phrase is the same book that was the object of 买. It has moved to after 的, and nothing fills its old slot in the clause.

More examples:

• 她做的菜很好吃。(Tā zuò de cài hěn hǎochī.) -- The food she made is delicious.
• 他写的信我还没看。(Tā xiě de xìn wǒ hái méi kàn.) -- The letter he wrote, I haven't read yet.
• 你推荐的电影我看完了。(Nǐ tuījiàn de diànyǐng wǒ kàn wán le.) -- The film you recommended, I've finished watching.

The subject becomes the head noun

The head noun can also be the subject of the embedded clause.

• 来的人不多。(Lái de rén bù duō.) -- The people who came were not many.
• 住在这里的学生都是留学生。(Zhù zài zhèlǐ de xuésheng dōu shì liúxuéshēng.) -- The students who live here are all international students.
• 昨天帮我的那个人是我同学。(Zuótiān bāng wǒ de nà ge rén shì wǒ tóngxué.) -- The person who helped me yesterday is my classmate.

The head noun can be left out

When the noun being described is obvious or has already been mentioned, it is very common to drop it entirely and let 的 carry the meaning on its own. The phrase 我买的 on its own can mean "the one I bought" or "what I bought."

• 这是我做的。(Zhè shì wǒ zuò de.) -- This is what I made. / This is the one I made.
• 你要哪个？我要便宜的。(Nǐ yào nǎge? Wǒ yào piányí de.) -- Which one do you want? I want the cheap one.
• 穿红衣服的是我姐姐。(Chuān hóng yīfu de shì wǒ jiějie.) -- The one wearing a red dress is my older sister.

This is extremely common in conversation. Once you recognize that 的 at the end of a phrase can stand in for a noun, a lot of natural Chinese starts to make more sense.

Longer and more complex modifiers

There is no strict limit on how long a modifier before 的 can be. In written Chinese especially, quite long clauses can be stacked before a noun.

• 他昨天在图书馆借的那本书 -- the book he borrowed from the library yesterday
• 我们上个月讨论过的那个问题 -- the issue we discussed last month
• 老师推荐给我们看的纪录片 -- the documentary the teacher recommended we watch

In speech, people tend to keep modifiers shorter and break complex ideas into separate sentences. In reading, learning to find the 的 + noun at the end of a long modifier is a key skill. When you see a string of words and are not sure how they connect, look for 的 + noun and work backward to find where the modifier starts.

的 versus 得 and 地

A quick reminder: 的, 得 (de), and 地 (de) are three different characters that all happen to sound the same in modern Mandarin. Only 的 links a modifier to a following noun. 地 links an adverb to a following verb (慢慢地走, "to walk slowly"), and 得 links a verb to a following complement (走得很快, "walks very fast"). This article is only about 的.

The key habit to build

The most important shift for learners is learning to read and build sentences from right to left when a 的 modifier is involved. Find the noun at the end, then read the modifier in front of it as a description of that noun. In English you read "the book [that I bought]" left to right, finding the noun first and the modifier after. In Chinese you build it as "[I bought] 的 book," modifier first.

Once this direction feels natural, relative clauses in Chinese stop being confusing and start being one of the most elegant parts of the language.