Use of 的

[Mike]

大家好！

[A] 请问, what is the rule for using 的 for people? Do I need 的 in these example:

(1) 你的老师... / (2) 我的老师... / (3) 我的朋友...

What does it ‘mean’ if I don’t include 的?

What about using 的 for objects, like 我的办公室...？Must I always use 的 in these cases?

谢谢

[djwebb2004]

The more sense of attachment, the less of the need to put in a 的，but you will find that in colloquial Chinese a lot more 的's are omitted casually than necessarily provided for in grammar books. Also too many 的's in a sentence overloads it and there is a tendency to try to get rid of some.

据我所知: 我妈妈 is the prescribed form - that doesn't mean to say you will never, ever hear 我的妈妈 especially when people are speaking slow and simple for foreigners. 我的朋友 and 我的老师 are the normal forms, but I think in both cases 我朋友 and 我老师 can be heard. I do not think 我办公室 is right at all, however. Other ones to bear in mind are: 我党 and 我国。

[HashiriKata]

Yes, you'd need 的 in (1) 你的老师... / (2) 我的老师... / (3) 我的朋友...as you would need it in 我的办公室.

的 can also be omitted in spacific cases, especially if there're already some 的 in the sentence. There have already been some threads about 的. Try a search to get more details about it.

[FSO]

For people, 的 is optional when referring to one's own close family relations.

E.g.: 我哥哥是大夫.

In my experience, 的 is used when referring to the close family relations of other people. Most other cases (referring to things, etc.) require 的.

When there are a number of descriptive or possessive clauses all modifying a single noun, it is sometimes the case that 的 only immediately preceeds the noun in question. Issues of style and semantic complexity, though, can demand additional 的s.

[Mike]

I get it！

多谢你们

[Mugi]

djwebb2004 and FSO's responses are closest - 的 can be omitted when referring to non family members whom you consider close: 我朋友 is perfectly fine (try Googling the phrase). 的 can also be omitted when speaking about other people's family members, so long as your conversation is informal: 你哥, 他姐, 老宋他爹 are all perfectly fine. 我老师 and 我办公室 are less common though

Note that 我们老师 and 我们办公室 are also possible, even when by using the plural you aren't necessarily referring to possession by anyone else but yourself. Hence, depending on the situation/usage, the above two examples can mean either "our teacher" or "my teacher" and "our office" or "my office" respectively. Not sure why this is so though. Adding in a 的 after the plural though makes the subject unequivocally plural: 我们的办公室 = our office; 我们的老师 = our teacher.

*Edited in deference to jukebox's comment below!

[jukebox]

Note that while 我老师 and 我办公室 aren't acceptable

I think in a colloquial situation, sometimes, both phrases are acceptable.

for example,

你明天到我办公室来一趟。

你有什么事情就找我老师吧。

Here, 的 is not necessary at all.

Be careful when coming to writing essays, however, in most cases, for Chinese learners 的 is better not to be omitted.

In well-written and elegant articles, the use of 的 is never too much though. It seems to be contradicted, but you need more practice to figure out the nuance of the usage.

[Mugi]

jukebox, you're dead right. In fact, the more scenarios I run through, the more acceptable both seem. Have edited my original post to reflect your well pointed out corrections. Just as well someone else is paying attention!

[trien27]

我办公室

"办公室"(The office) is a noun. Because 办 is a verb, you should add "de"(possessive form). 我办 (it should be "我 lai 办" meaning "I'll [come here to] do it" or "我 qu 办" [i'll go there to work on it])means "I will work on a certain project" Otherwise it would be grammatically incorrect. 公 means "public/government" 室 means a "room" as in a "classroom". I don't think there's such a term as 公室 in Chinese.

[trien27]

我们老shi = "We [as] teachers", and NOT "my teacher" or "our teacher". In order to say "our teacher", add 的 between the nouns.

我们办公室 = "We [as a part of this] office", and NOT "my office" or "our office". Office = a branch, division, or department within a company or organization and doesn't necessarily mean the usual office as in "My office" which usually would equate to "the room or place in which I work." In order to say our office add 的 between nouns.

As illustrated above, a missing character or more in a phrase or sentence, can cause confusion for people or you cannot directly and correctly get your intended meaning across. Which can mean "you might have lost this business to someone else because future business partners mistook your meaning for something else which wasn't intended."

It is true that you can omit 的 when there's too many as in: wo de jiejie de pengyou de shengri [My elder sister's friend's birthday], could be changed to wo jiejie pengyou de shengri, or just simplify it with all 的s taken out: wo jiejie penyou shengri.

Only on relationship and kinship terms could you really omit most or all 的s: reason being there's too many different kinship terms in Chinese(2 different terms for grandmother depending on who's parent she is[biologically] or 4 different terms for cousins depending on 1) which parent's side they're on and 2)whether they're male or female and whether they are older or younger than who they are cousins with.).

Otherwise it's not valid provided that you could drastically change the meaning in the situation as I've said above.

[Mugi]

trien27, you're right that depending on context 我们老师 can mean "we (as) teachers" also. Good point. My point was that it is a common alternative to 我的老师, and even though the subject is plural, it isn't necessarily used that way, hence it often means "my teacher" (although "our teacher" is probably more common): Google the phrase and see how many examples fit "we (as) teachers". Not too many. Most (but not all) examples under the string "我们老师都" mean "we (as) teachers", but this is only a small percetnage (2.7%) of all 我们老师 hits.

As for 我们办公室, try Googling that too. Here are just a couple of random examples from the first page where it clearly means "my/our office"

于是我们办公室4女人狂唱4个小时

难怪被分检的工人直接当作不明邮件扔到我们办公室的公共信箱里去了

我们办公室的入口紧挨着这家便利超市