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title: School words — a lesson of Mova's school · trees and pragmatics
description: «School words», a lesson of the chinese street course of Mova's primary school, sentence by sentence with dependency trees and pragmatics. It begins: Ming goes to two schools: the normal one all week, and Zhōngwén xuéxiào (Chinese school) on Saturday morning, where he learns to read and write.
---

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# School words

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Lesson 15 of the chinese street course of Mova's primary school: 13 sentences, each with its syntax tree and pragmatics. The lessons are written for Mova, and their agreed trees are part of Mova corpus 0.4 (CC BY-SA 4.0). How Mova does on its tests: [the lesson at school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/school-run/chinese-street/15-school-words/).

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- [0](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/chinese-street/15-school-words/0/) — Ming goes to two schools: the normal one all week, and Zhōngwén xuéxiào (Chinese school) on Saturday morning, where he learns to read and write.
- [1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/chinese-street/15-school-words/1/) — You only ever hear the words, so you learn them by ear from him.
- [2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/chinese-street/15-school-words/2/) — At Chinese school the teacher walks in, everyone stands up and sings out together, slowly, «lǎoshī hǎo!» (hello, teacher), and the teacher answers «tóngxuémen hǎo» (hello, class).
- [3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/chinese-street/15-school-words/3/) — It sounds like a little choir.
- [5](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/chinese-street/15-school-words/5/) — At xià kè everyone runs out.
- [6](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/chinese-street/15-school-words/6/) — The words you'll need most when your Chinese runs out are three: tīng bù dǒng (I hear you but don't understand), wǒ bù zhīdào (I don't know) and wǒ wàng le (I forgot) — careful, wàng falls; rising wáng is a king.
- [8](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/chinese-street/15-school-words/8/) — lǎoshī hǎo («LAOW-shr HOW») is the whole class standing and greeting the teacher in a slow chorus; the teacher replies tóngxuémen hǎo, hello class.
- [9](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/chinese-street/15-school-words/9/) — tóngxué («TONG-shweh», both rising) means classmate, a little more formal than péngyou (friend); a classmate is not always a friend.
- [10](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/chinese-street/15-school-words/10/) — shàng kè («SHAHNG KUH») means lessons start or to be in class; shàng kè le! means the bell has gone; shàng xué is to go to school.
- [11](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/chinese-street/15-school-words/11/) — xià kè («SHYAH KUH») means the lesson is over, break time; shàng (up) and xià (down) often mark start and end.
- [13](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/chinese-street/15-school-words/13/) — kǎoshì («KAOW-SHR») means a test or exam; kǎo de zěnmeyàng? (how did the test go?) is the first thing many Chinese parents ask.
- [14](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/chinese-street/15-school-words/14/) — yìbǎi fēn («ee-BYE FUN») means a hundred marks, full marks; fēn also means minute and penny.
- [17](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/chinese-street/15-school-words/17/) — wǒ bù zhīdào («waw boo JR-dow») means I don't know; to a teacher, adding duìbuqǐ makes it softer.

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