3 KudoZ points awarded for this answer. Comment: "Final Rendering: She told me in secret that tomorrow is Miss Zheung's birthday, and that I must not fail to give her a present. Acknowledgment: With everyone working together I was certainly able to formulate a reasonable explanation and an improved translation. I am awarding my points to Yuzouren because he was the first to provide an explanation that everyone could agree with. Nevertheless, I used Jennifer's entry for the gloss, because it appears to be a more accurate rendering of the phrase than my own. Unfortunately, I cannot agree with Gio about the mistaken identity of the character 的, as the author of these sentences is a native speaker of Cantonese and would not likely fall victim to the trap described by Gio. Certainly PK has made it clear that some Chinese find nothing wrong with the phrasing 偷偷的告訴. As both PK and the author are Hong Kong natives, perhaps we have identified a HK colloquialism. Though Randy's advice is certainly not to be ignored, I find it useful only as a last resort. Fillers in any language, no matter where they appear, reveal information about the speaker and his or her social and physical environments, that are not a direct part of the message, but still important to the translation. They may not always be directly translatable, but they can work their way into the choice of other words that share the same general context. Finally, I would like to thank both wherestip and Jennifer for their many examples and Aaron for his confirmatory support. Discussion: Please see http://homepage.mac.com/moogoonghwa/tsongkit/part3/III-2b-g.html#s17 for further discussion regarding the context of this question. My very best from the land of no mountains surrounded by sea on many sides."