# adjectival verb+的過



## Serafín33

What does the construction "adjectival verb + 的過" mean, as in the following example sentence?

"或許這樣才是最好的吧，維持現狀，平平順順的過。放棄它，高興的過。"

Is "放棄它，高興的過" basically "To (just) leave it would make me rather happy""? (Happier in comparison to keep the situation as it is.)


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## tarlou

It should be 地 rather than 的. (But even native speakers may mix up 的、地、得 in casual writings sometimes.)

"adj+地" is an adverb, like adding "-ly" in English.
高興地 is simply "happily", 高興地過 means "to live happily". (In that sentence I guess 過 means 過日子, to live a life.)


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## Serafín33

Oh, I see. Thanks.

About the thing of writing 地 as 的, I've even seen some _textbooks_ of  Chinese doing that... I'm not even sure how "wrong" it is to write it  like that, but yes, it didn't occur to me this was that.


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## stellari

By the way, 放棄它 means 'let it go'/'give it up' instead of 'leave the situation as is'. The latter is represented by a phrase that appears earlier in that sentence: 維持現狀.

放棄它，高興地過 means 'give it up and live happily'.

I have seen a great number of native speakers, even decently educated ones, who can't or don't bother to use 的, 地 and 得 properly. For me, it's kind of like spelling 'could have' as 'could of' -- It's definitely very far from being correct, but people usually have a higher tolerance for this type of mistake since it usually does not cause much ambiguity and it occurs extremely frequently.


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## Ghabi

Serafín33 said:


> About the thing of writing 得 as 的, I've even seen some _textbooks_ of  Chinese doing that... I'm not even sure how "wrong" it is to write it  like that, but yes, it didn't occur to me this was that.


It's certainly not "wrong" for those who care to read older books. It had always been the norm to use either 的 or 地 before a verb (just check out the older novels or plays), until very recently when some people began to propagandize an artificial, unnecessary distinction between the two.

But then of course you're obliged to use neither 地 nor 的 before a verb: it's perfectly idiomatic to say 好好過日子/高高興興過日子, for example, just as it's perfectly idiomatic to say "Come quick!" or "The wind is blowing high" in English.


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## xiaolijie

For the purpose of learning Chinese as a foreign language, the orthographic distinction between 得, 地 and 的 will help a bit in understanding the underlying grammar. For native speakers, the distinction between them is artificial; and becomes pedantic when taken to the extreme.



			
				Ghabi said:
			
		

> use neither 地 nor 的 before a verb: it's perfectly idiomatic to say 好好過日子/高高興興過日子


But take care! You can't say "高興過", can you?


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## Serafín33

Ghabi said:


> It's certainly not "wrong" for those who care to read older books. It had always been the norm to use either 的 or 地 before a verb (just check out the older novels or plays), until very recently when some people began to propagandize an artificial, unnecessary distinction between the two.
> 
> But then of course you're obliged to use neither 地 nor 的 before a verb: it's perfectly idiomatic to say 好好過日子/高高興興過日子, for example, just as it's perfectly idiomatic to say "Come quick!" or "The wind is blowing high" in English.


Heheh, that's nice to know. I take a similar issue regarding <h> in Spanish in words like _haber, __honra_. If people from the Middle Ages and the Golden Age didn't mind writing them _auer, onr(r)a_, why should we respect the ancient  pronunciation during the Roman Republic and write that <h>? Same thing goes for the purely etymological <b> vs. <v> distinction, which those same people didn't observe.


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## liannaly

＂的、地、得＂，they do help to show sentence structure.
In general, 
sth.+的=adj.
sth.+地+VERB: (sth.+地)=adv.
verb+得：得 as a complement for sentence to show a process, such as, 过得很好


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## SuperXW

Ghabi said:


> It's certainly not "wrong" for those who care to read older books. It had always been the norm to use either 的 or 地 before a verb (just check out the older novels or plays), until very recently when some people began to propagandize an artificial, unnecessary distinction between the two.


Necessary or not, recently or not, I think it has something to do with different political views, namely Hong Konger and Mainlander's views. 
To me, on this 的/地/得subject, both older Chinese and newer rules have their advantages and disadvantages.

的/地/得 不区分：
缺乏统一规范。逻辑、语法的形式较混乱。不利于电脑理解。

的/地/得 强制区分：
多了一样语法规则需要学习，且颇为不易。

还有，固有问题："地"的读音与含义，和常用义"土地"相差很大。”得”的读音与含义，和本意”得到”有一定偏差。这些，都会造成汉语"麻烦"、"难学"。
我觉得，对于一切文化，”好与不好”，”应该不做规范还是应该强制规范”，真的很难说。


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## Ghabi

SuperXW said:


> Necessary or not, recently or not, I think it has something to do with different political views, namely Hong Konger and Mainlander's views.


Hello SuperX! I'm not sure what you mean.

The issue is not regional: Linguistic prescriptivism is just as prevalent in Hong Kong as in Mainland, and the Chinese teachers here probably also insist on the distinction (but as 的/地/得 are pronounced differently in Cantonese, the students don't seem to be too bothered by the distinction, just as they're not bothered by the to/two distinction in English, because they're pronounced differently in HK English).

The issue also has nothing to do with politics. The orthographical distinction was already championed by some before 1949. Actually a three-way distinction was promoted:
-Use 底 between two nouns, as in 媽媽底女兒
-Use 的 between an adjective and a noun, as in 美麗的媽媽 
-Use 地 before a verb
(No one was able to practice what they preached, apparently.)

As to me, I'm certainly not against the use of 地 and 得 (it's simply a matter of personal choice); what I find problematic is the know-better-than-thou, gotcha prescriptivism that's all too common in our society.


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## SuperXW

Ghabi said:


> Hello SuperX! I'm not sure what you mean.
> 
> The issue is not regional: Linguistic prescriptivism is just as prevalent in Hong Kong as in Mainland, and the Chinese teachers here probably also insist on the distinction (but as 的/地/得 are pronounced differently in Cantonese, the students don't seem to be too bothered by the distinction, just as they're not bothered by the to/two distinction in English, because they're pronounced differently in HK English).
> 
> The issue also has nothing to do with politics. The orthographical distinction was already championed by some before 1949. Actually a three-way distinction was promoted:
> -Use 底 between two nouns, as in 媽媽底女兒
> -Use 的 between an adjective and a noun, as in 美麗的媽媽
> -Use 地 before a verb
> (No one was able to practice what they preached, apparently.)
> 
> As to me, I'm certainly not against the use of 地 and 得 (it's simply a matter of personal choice); what I find problematic is the know-better-than-thou, gotcha prescriptivism that's all too common in our society.


What I meant was, if you interview 10 mainland university students or professionals, none of them would say the regulation of 的/地 is a "very recently artificial, unnecessary distinction", "propagandized by some people". For them, 旧时的中文 is basically an ancient culture, separated from modern standard Chinese. In Hong Kong, however, traditional Chinese language is often more appreciated by professionals.


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## tarlou

查了一下，“的得地”的区分应该是白话文运动的时候搞的，当时一批人们主张完全废除文言写作，推广纯白话文写作，并把西方的语法分析加到中文上来（那个年代人们比较狂热，甚至有人主张汉语拼音化的）。
这样看来，"artificial"肯定是的，也比较"recently"，说它"unnecessary"不能算错。至于是好是坏、如何评价，恐怕仁者见仁智者见智了，不能按照大陆和香港地域来区分吧。

第五版的现代汉语词典里面，“的”有一个意思是 同“得de”，可见官方都承认／允许有用“的”来代替“得”的用法了。而“地”读de音只有一个意思，即作状语。可见artifical的程度相当高，当时人们居然硬给“地”加了一个音，来区分“的地”。。。


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## Serafín33

Ghabi said:


> (but as 的/地/得 are pronounced differently in Cantonese, the students don't seem to be too bothered by the distinction).


The beauty of Cantonese. 做 are also 作 distinguished, which is incredibly nice. (Why aren't there any books that teach Standard Chinese using Cantonese pronunciation? I'd loves me one of those. Every single English-language Cantonese textbook I've seen just teaches informal language.)


			
				SuperXW said:
			
		

> What I meant was, if you interview 10 mainland university students or  professionals, none of them would say the regulation of 的/地 is a "very  recently artificial, unnecessary distinction", "propagandized by some  people". For them, 旧时的中文 is basically an ancient culture, separated from  modern standard Chinese. In Hong Kong, however, traditional Chinese  language is often more appreciated by professionals.


But the thing is, if you interviewed 10 HK university students or professionals, none of them would say that either. Not many know that the 的/地 is a distinction championed only during the last 100 years or so. It has nothing to do with politics, or differences between the mainland and HK. I literally just went on Mingpao to look for an instance of 地 marking an adverbial, and found this among the news in the main page:


> 守候醫院陪伴父親的馬卡齊娃（Makaziwe）是曼德拉與首任妻子所生，她訴說現時很珍惜與父親共聚的時光，盼他安詳地完成人生路。


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## SuperXW

I was wrong to bring up political stuffs. Maybe I have overgeneralized the ideologies. I think you can skip what I've said about Hong Kong and Mainland differences.



Serafín33 said:


> But the thing is, if you interviewed 10 HK university students or professionals, none of them would say that either.


 But Ghabi said this, don't blame me...


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