[taiwanshaun]

Hello from Taiwan!

聽起來很像是女朋友誇獎男朋友，剛剛做了一件讓她開心的事.

This is my understanding of this sentence:
Sounds like a situation where the girlfriend compliments the boyfriend, because recently the girlfriend had a great time.

Is that at all correct?

聽起來 - Sounds like

很像 - very similar to (something)

Following this, describes the hypothetical situation:
"是女朋友誇獎男朋友，剛剛做了一件讓她開心的事."

剛剛做了一件讓她開心的事
This part's grammar just confuses me.
"Recently there was something that made the girlfriend feel happy."
--> That is what my understanding of this part is.
開心的事 -> Do we need 的事? At this point, does 開心 become a descriptive adjective?

Thanks for any help!!!!!
-- Shaun

[jiangping]

Hello from England!

The second bit isn't "there was something that..." but rather "[he] just did something that made her happy". The reason it's got 的事 at the end is because the main verb is 做 (rather than the 讓..which is part of the modifying phrase). So the simple form is "做...事", which is quite a normal combo.

Another thing that might be confusing is what exactly is modifying the 事. It's not just 開心的事 but 讓她開心的事.

[Guoke]

Hello from Mars!

剛剛 [adverb] = just
做了 [transitive verb] = did
一件事 [noun] = something
讓她開心的 [adjectival phrase] = that made her happy

一件（讓她開心的）事 = something (that made her happy)

[huaxia]

you guys are awesome. As a native speaker of Chinese, sometimes I just take what we say for granted, without thinking that there is much to discuss. But you guys really get into details. This is the same experience sometimes I have with learning English. Ocassionally, when I discuss a grammar issue with native English speakers, even teachers of ESL, I find I can explain it more explicitly than they do, which makes me feel good

[Guoke]

I'm also a native speaker of Chinese.

[huaxia]

So, Guoke, how did you develop the awareness of the details in your native language? Have you had a lot of experience teaching Chinese to foreigners or experience of translating Chinese into another language or vice versa? Would you like to share with us what have enabled you the ability to decompose your language to the small particles?

What I wanted to point out in my post above was, for a typical Chinese-native person, he may not be explicitly aware the details when using the language.

[Guoke]

huaxia,

No,I don't have any experience of either teaching Chinese or translating.

Yes, you're right. A native speaker learns his/her native language through a different approach. Besides Mandarin, I don't even know how many tones there are in the other Chinese dialects I speak and that doesn't really make any difference. It really puzzled me when I first discovered that the four Mandarin tones can be such a nightmare for foreigners.

So far, I have only studied English grammar and I tend to look at Chinese grammar from English grammar's point of view. I like to compare the difference and similarity between the two languages and that's about all.

[taiwanshaun]

Guoke and Jiangping, thanks very much!! That clears it up for me!!!

It's kind of like a english relative clause.

A thing [that made her happy]

But it is added before the [noun].

Thanks!!!!!!!