--- title: Hungry, tired, shy, excited — a lesson of Mova's school · trees and pragmatics description: «Hungry, tired, shy, excited», a lesson of the chinese street course of Mova's primary school, sentence by sentence with dependency trees and pragmatics. It begins: You walk into Lín's kitchen after school and say "wǒ è le" — "waw UH luh", I'm hungry — and his mum is delighted: feeding a hungry chil --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/chinese-street/17-hungry-tired-shy-excited/) [home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/) / [Chinese street](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/chinese-street/) / Hungry, tired, shy, excited # Hungry, tired, shy, excited Lesson 17 of the chinese street course of Mova's primary school: 18 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/17-hungry-tired-shy-excited/). - [0](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/chinese-street/17-hungry-tired-shy-excited/0/) — You walk into Lín's kitchen after school and say "wǒ è le" — "waw UH luh", I'm hungry — and his mum is delighted: feeding a hungry child is her favourite job. - [1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/chinese-street/17-hungry-tired-shy-excited/1/) — The little word "le" at the end means "it has happened now": wǒ è le, wǒ kě le, wǒ lèi le, wǒ kùn le — hungry, thirsty, worn out, sleepy. - [2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/chinese-street/17-hungry-tired-shy-excited/2/) — Tones trick the ear here: è (hungry) falls like a short "uh!", but é rising is "goose" — so a wobbly voice can announce "I'm a goose" instead. - [3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/chinese-street/17-hungry-tired-shy-excited/3/) — Mandarin splits "tired" in two: lèi is body-tired after football, kùn is eyes-closing sleepy; and "zháojí" mixes worried with in-a-hurry, so a parent who is zháojí is anxious, not angry. - [4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/chinese-street/17-hungry-tired-shy-excited/4/) — People say "wǒ méi shì" — I'm fine — even when they are not; if your friend's face says otherwise, stay with him. - [5](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/chinese-street/17-hungry-tired-shy-excited/5/) — "wǒ è le" (waw UH luh) means "I'm hungry"; è falls, while é rising means goose, and the friendly answer is "chī diǎnr dōngxi ba", have something to eat. - [6](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/chinese-street/17-hungry-tired-shy-excited/6/) — "wǒ kě le" means "I'm thirsty", and the answer is "hē shuǐ ba", have some water; kě also turns up in kěyǐ (may, can) and kě'ài (cute). - [7](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/chinese-street/17-hungry-tired-shy-excited/7/) — "wǒ lèi le" means "I'm tired, worn out" in the body, after sport or a long walk; the answer is "xiūxi yíxià", have a rest. - [8](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/chinese-street/17-hungry-tired-shy-excited/8/) — "wǒ kùn le" means "I'm sleepy" and the answer is "shuìjiào ba", go to sleep; you can be lèi without being kùn. - [9](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/chinese-street/17-hungry-tired-shy-excited/9/) — "wǒ bù shūfu" means "I don't feel well"; shūfu means comfortable, so "hǎo shūfu" on a soft sofa is "so comfy", and an adult will ask "nǎr bù shūfu?". - [10](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/chinese-street/17-hungry-tired-shy-excited/10/) — "jǐnzhāng" means nervous or tense, before a test or a race; a close match can also be jǐnzhāng, and friends say "bié jǐnzhāng, jiāyóu!". - [11](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/chinese-street/17-hungry-tired-shy-excited/11/) — "hàixiū" means shy; grown-ups say "tā hàixiū" about a quiet child, and a quick "āyí hǎo" to the friend's mum stops them calling you that. - [12](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/chinese-street/17-hungry-tired-shy-excited/12/) — "xīngfèn" means excited, the bubbly can't-sit-still feeling before a birthday, a trip or a festival. - [13](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/chinese-street/17-hungry-tired-shy-excited/13/) — "zháojí" (both syllables rising) means worried and in a hurry at once; "bié zháojí" means "don't worry, take your time". - [14](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/chinese-street/17-hungry-tired-shy-excited/14/) — "wǒ xiǎng nǐ" means "I miss you", said to a friend who moved away or to grandparents on a video call; the answer is "wǒ yě xiǎng nǐ". - [15](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/chinese-street/17-hungry-tired-shy-excited/15/) — xiǎng also means "think" and "want": "wǒ xiǎng chī" means "I want to eat". - [16](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/chinese-street/17-hungry-tired-shy-excited/16/) — "xiǎng jiā" means homesick, on a sleepover or a school trip; grandparents who moved from China may feel xiǎng jiā too. - [17](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/chinese-street/17-hungry-tired-shy-excited/17/) — "wǒ méi shì" means "I'm OK, I'm fine", but people say it even when they are not fine. - ← previous: [Happy, angry, bored, scared](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/chinese-street/16-happy-angry-bored-scared/) - next →: [The body](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/chinese-street/18-the-body/) - ↑ back to [Chinese street](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/chinese-street/)