BONUS: Special - Emphasizing Details with 是...的

Today’s article is going to discuss three ways to use the 是...的 construction in Chinese. Put simply; this construction emphasizes details. The speaker wishes to draw the listener's focus to a particular point, and so they put those details after 是 and before 的. 

Similarly to how you can’t assume 了 indicates past tense, this construction also does not necessarily indicate any particular tense. However, most of the time, the speaker is referring to details about the past.

In the Mandarin Blueprint Method course (MBM), we use the following three tags to distinguish separate ways to emphasize details in a sentence. They are:

GS-Special-是-Description-的

GS-Special-是-PPT-的

GS-Special-是-DoesWhat-Guest-的

Let’s go through them one at a time:

GS-Special-是-Description-的

A speaker will often emphasize a description, for example:

Sentence 1:

这只羊是白的。MBM Level 15
Zhè zhī yáng shì bái de.
This sheep is a white (sheep).

As you can see from this MBM Level 15 example sentence, the speaker chooses to emphasize that the sheep is white. Not how furry it is, or how loud it goes “baaaaa,” but that it is white.

Sentence  2:

我的妈妈是最美的。MBM Level 16
Wǒde māma shì zuì měi de.
My mom is the most beautiful. 

I like to imagine that the speaker is in a back & forth argument with someone about who is the most beautiful person. The speaker needs to emphasize that his/her mom is ‘the most beautiful.’ He/she could theoretically say, “My mom is beautiful” (我的妈妈很美。), but that wouldn’t emphasize the point as emphatically.

Sentence  3:

十个人以内是免费的。MBM Level 17
Shíge rén yǐnèi shì miǎnfèi de.
Ten people or fewer are free of charge.

十个人以内 means “within ten people,” but the speaker clearly thinks the more important detail is “free.” A marketing guru, indeed! 

GS-Special-是-PPT-的

Sometimes, it’s a noun (aka, Person Place or Thing - PPT) that needs to be emphasized and, therefore, goes between 是 & 的. For example:

Sentence  4:

桌子上的勺子是你的吗？MBM Level 13
Zhuōzi shàng de sháozi shì nǐde ma?
Is the spoon on the table your’s?

The first part of the sentence establishes the subject of 勺子 (more specifically 桌子上的勺子) and then emphasizes that they want to get to the bottom of whether or not it belongs to YOU.

Sentence  5:

我爱你！我的心是你一个人的。MBM Level 13
Wǒ ài nǐ! wǒde xīn shì nǐ yíge rén de.
I love you! My heart is yours and yours only.

The translation of this sentence isn’t a direct one, but it gets across how to understand adding “一个人” going after “你.” In this heartwarming exchange, the speaker is attempting to be romantic by not only saying that their heart “是你的” but also “是你一个人的.” It’s a double emphasis of love! <3

Sentence  6:

中国人的名字差不多都是三个字的。MBM Level 22
Zhōngguó rén de míngzi chàbuduō dōu shì sān ge zì de.
Almost all Chinese people’s names are three characters long.

Here the speaker wants to create a teachable moment by putting the main point of the sentence between 是 & 的. If you didn’t know that most Chinese names are made up of three characters, this sentence makes it easy to understand.

GS-Special-是-DoesWhat-Guest-的

This type of structure contains a mini-sentence between 是 & 的. It helps specify not only who was involved or a description, but how or where something happened. Let’s take a look at the first sentence:

Sentence  7:

桌子上哪个苹果是你买的? MBM Level 20
Zhuōzi shàng něige píngguǒ shì nǐ mǎi de?
Which of the apples on the table are the ones you bought?

Note that we have an action, or a “Does What” (买 - to buy) along with a “Guest” (你 - you), in between 是 & 的. If you take away the 买, the sentence would fall into the GS-Special-是-PPT-的 category and would only be asking about possession. Adding 买 dives deeper into not merely which apples belong to you, but specifically which ones belong to you because you bought them.

Sentence  8:

我和我的女朋友就是在某个公园认识的。MBM Level 23
Wǒ hé wǒde nǚ péngyǒu jiùshì zài mǒuge gōngyuán rènshi de.
It was at a particular/certain park that I met my girlfriend.

Just like the above sentence, taking away the “DoesWhat” (认识) changes the emphasis. Imagine we took away 认识：

我和我的女朋友就是在某个公园的。

In that sentence, the speaker is emphasizing where they were only. Perhaps the speaker is being accused of something and thereby explaining where they were to serve as an alibi. By adding 认识, the emphasis switches to where they met. 

Sentence  9:

你是几岁成为司机的？MBM Level 25
Nǐ shì jǐ suì chéngwéi sījī de?
How old were you when you became a driver?

If I want to know someone’s age when they did something, this sentence provides the perfect template. 你是几岁 [INSERT THING THEY DID] 的? 

As you can see, the 是...的 construction provides a simple but powerful structure to determine the details of a situation.

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Member Comments from 2019-mid-2020

Do you also want to leave a comment? You can do so below！

Ric Santos 

One week into the foundation course, I was so eager to learn about the "Shi-de" topic that I specifically asked for this lesson so I could right ti right away. Luke did email to the shide lessons.
Needless to say that even up to this pont now I don't understand it quite well at all.- it is not the fault of Mandarin Blueprint.
But I am NOT adverse to the "shi-de" anymore because I see it all the time, I hear it all the time and I read it all the time... it is THERE all the time. In fact I am getting used to it. In fact I am even using it without much thought in a few sentences I venture to make. From time to time I use it for possessive nouns and past actions of what the Guest did in that sentence.
What I am sharing in my experience is this: just listen a lot, read a lot and absorb a lot.
And one final thing : the Mandarin Blueprint is very gradual in its dosage of inputs, and I + 1 is good enough. Thanks again to Luke and Phil.

MB Team

Here's the link to where Phil and Luke talked about this comment in the Mandarin Blueprint Podcast: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GiYrfenj6YQ&t=4290s