Translations between the English“of”structure and Chinese“de”structure are not completely equivalence, which needs careful consideration. In the present study, an explanatory writing The Sad Young Man and its translation were selected to explore the structure“of”in English based on functional syntax and the structure“de”in Chinese. Inequivalent translations of“of”struc-ture were shown to help second language learners better understand the appropriate translation of“of”structure in English.