Particles are functional parts of speech that can't stand alone by themselves. They require other elements of speech to augment. Chinese makes liberal use of these particles, as it lacks inflection and verbal expressive tones like the Western non-tonal languages.

The particles you've met up with most frequently thus far are de and ma. Make friends with de. You and de will be working together very closely in your exploration of Chinese. Ma, the question particle, is also a great ally to have on your side, but ma will only show up when asking a question. You'll generally find de in three basic situations. First and foremost, de likes to follow adjectives:

The second place you'll find de is after nominal expressions. A nominal expression is an adjective-like clause that plays the role of a relative clause. Chinese does not have words for “that,” “which,” “who,” etc. Check out the following examples; the “that” in the Chinese serves to clarify the subject.

Lastly, de shows that the phrase that precedes it is attributive. As a result, to say the words “my,” “his/her,” or “our,” you simply add de to the corresponding simple pronouns. Thus, Wǒ + de = “my,” and Tā + de = “his,” etc. For example: