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Forum Rocket Chinese Chinese Grammar Beijing's famous commercial center

Beijing's famous commercial center

Robert-C7

Robert-C7

Lesson 3.3 has this sentence in it: Shì Běijīng yǒumíng de shāngyè zhōngxīn. 是北京有名的商业中心。 It is Beijing's famous commercial centre. Is this sentence missing a 的 (de)? One 的 is required to connect the adjective yǒumíng to the noun shāngyè zhōngxīn. Do we not also need another 的 to connect Běijīng to the rest of the sentence? That it, should this be written as Shì Běijīng de yǒumíng de shāngyè zhōngxīn. 是北京的有名的商业中心。 Google translates "Shì Běijīng yǒumíng de shāngyè zhōngxīn" to "Beijing is famous commercial center" while translating "Shì Běijīng de yǒumíng de shāngyè zhōngxīn" to "Is Beijing's famous commercial center".
Lin-Ping

Lin-Ping

你好Robert! The 的 can actually be omitted and is done so in order to make the sentence flow better and not confuse us with which part of the sentence is the most important. Equally, we could write the sentence as, 是北京的有名商业中心。 As you can see there is a certain flexibility with the 的. Also, if a sentence has too many 的s then it can break up the flow of the sentence. This is a difficult one to understand, but after study the language for long enough you will eventually get the feel for when and where you can be flexible with the use of your 的s. I hope this helps and 加油! - Lin Ping
Robert-C7

Robert-C7

Thank you for the explanation. It is also interesting that there is no 的 between 商业 and 中心, but it all makes sense, kind-of.

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