Help with when to use 的 / de

[u/unseasonedunflavored]

hi everyone!
i’m fairly new to learning mandarin and right now i’m exclusively using HelloChinese. this might be stupid but i really don’t understand the difference between using 的 and not using it. any help is appreciated thank you so much 谢谢🙏🏻

[u/Ambitious-Party9815]

In short: Use 的 for possession (my book), but skip it for types/categories (Chinese food). Also, skip it with short adjectives (good person), but use it with longer descriptive adjectives (pretty flower).Of course, there are other exceptions, but for beginners, just remember some simple rules is okay

[u/lazier_garlic → u/Ambitious-Party9815]

https://www.chineseboost.com/grammar/de-after-adjectives/

On the one and two word adjective rule.

[u/lazier_garlic → u/lazier_garlic]

By the way I think their explanation of the one word adjective rule is a half truth. Yes, often it is functioning as a two character word, compound noun, whatever you want to call it, but not always. Old Chinese didn't have this 的 and Mandarin has plenty of inherited literary phrases from Classical Chinese as well as set spoken phrases. By contrast a lot of the compound adjectives are actually verbal phrases which have to be nominalized to use as a modifier, and it's likely the compound adjectives are getting de appended as an extension of that pattern. Compound adjectives aren't ancient so they don't have existing phrases to compete with the idea of adding de.

Classical Chinese DID run adjectives in a row with no de, so I think my account is more likely to be valid.