--- title: Spring Festival — Chinese New Year — a lesson of Mova's school · trees and pragmatics description: «Spring Festival — Chinese New Year», a lesson of the chinese street course of Mova's primary school, sentence by sentence with dependency trees and pragmatics. It begins: The night before, chúxī, New Year's Eve, is the big one: the whole family folds dumplings together (bāo jiǎozi), eats the reunio --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/chinese-street/25-spring-festival/) [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/) / Spring Festival — Chinese New Year # Spring Festival — Chinese New Year Lesson 25 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/25-spring-festival/). - [1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/chinese-street/25-spring-festival/1/) — The night before, chúxī, New Year's Eve, is the big one: the whole family folds dumplings together (bāo jiǎozi), eats the reunion dinner (niányèfàn), watches the TV Gala (Chūnwǎn) and tries to stay up past midnight (shǒusuì). - [2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/chinese-street/25-spring-festival/2/) — An old story says "nián" was a monster scared away by the colour red and loud bangs — so there are red couplets by the door, red lanterns and firecrackers. - [3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/chinese-street/25-spring-festival/3/) — Watch for the upside-down "fú" (luck) sign on the door: it is upside down on purpose, because dào (upside down) sounds like dào (arrived), so "fú dào le" means "luck has arrived" — don't "fix" it! - [4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/chinese-street/25-spring-festival/4/) — The one wish everybody needs is "xīnnián kuàilè!" (SHIN-nyen KWIGH-luh), Happy New Year — say it to every member of Lín's family the moment you walk in. - [5](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/chinese-street/25-spring-festival/5/) — "Chūnjié" means the Spring Festival, Chinese New Year; it falls in late January or February by the lunar calendar, not on 1 January. - [7](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/chinese-street/25-spring-festival/7/) — In an old story "nián" was a monster scared away by red and by loud bangs. - [8](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/chinese-street/25-spring-festival/8/) — "xīnnián kuàilè" means Happy New Year and is said to everyone at Chinese New Year and also on 1 January. - [9](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/chinese-street/25-spring-festival/9/) — "chúxī" means New Year's Eve, the most important evening; in some homes nobody sweeps the floor that day, so as not to sweep the luck away. - [11](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/chinese-street/25-spring-festival/11/) — "bāo jiǎozi" means making dumplings; families fold them together on New Year's Eve, and a coin hidden in one brings luck to whoever bites it. - [12](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/chinese-street/25-spring-festival/12/) — "fàng biānpào" means setting off firecrackers, at midnight in China and at Chinatown parades in Britain; firecrackers are for grown-ups, and the noise can scare small kids and dogs. - [13](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/chinese-street/25-spring-festival/13/) — "chūnlián" are red New Year couplets, poems on red paper put up by the door before New Year. - [15](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/chinese-street/25-spring-festival/15/) — "wǔ shī" is the lion dance at parades and shop openings; the lion "eats" lettuce and red envelopes hung up by shops. - [16](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/chinese-street/25-spring-festival/16/) — "Chūnwǎn" is the Spring Festival TV Gala, which families watch on New Year's Eve; grown-ups complain about it every year and still watch every minute. - ← previous: [Words that hurt — what they mean, never to be said](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/chinese-street/24-words-that-hurt/) - next →: [Red envelopes and New Year wishes](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/chinese-street/26-red-envelopes-and-new-year-wishes/) - ↑ back to [Chinese street](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/chinese-street/)