Pimsleur Mandarin II - Vocabulary

[gougou]

there is really a rule, that "的" replaces all "得" and "地"

That is what happening (hence the google results mentioned above), but it is not a rule. Especially as a student, you should be aware where to use 得 and 地, you can still replace them by 的 later if you feel the necessity.

[adrianlondon]

there is really a rule, that "的" replaces all "得" and "地"

Oh, I hope not! How dare they make the language easier to learn for the native children when I've just spent a year learning to differentiate between the "de's".

They'll revisit the plan to do away with characters and just write pinyin next.