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title: Red envelopes and New Year wishes — a lesson of Mova's school · trees and pragmatics
description: «Red envelopes and New Year wishes», a lesson of the chinese street course of Mova's primary school, sentence by sentence with dependency trees and pragmatics. It begins: At New Year Lín's aunties hand out hóngbāo — red envelopes with money inside — and every child in the room suddenly remembers the
---

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# Red envelopes and New Year wishes

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Lesson 26 of the chinese street course of Mova's primary school: 12 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/26-red-envelopes-and-new-year-wishes/).

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- [0](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/chinese-street/26-red-envelopes-and-new-year-wishes/0/) — At New Year Lín's aunties hand out hóngbāo — red envelopes with money inside — and every child in the room suddenly remembers their manners.
- [1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/chinese-street/26-red-envelopes-and-new-year-wishes/1/) — The rules: take it with both hands (shuāng shǒu jiē), say thank you with a wish, and don't open it in front of the giver (bié dāngmiàn chāi) — in English families you open presents at once, in many Chinese families you wait.
- [2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/chinese-street/26-red-envelopes-and-new-year-wishes/2/) — Chinese wishes come in neat sets of four syllables: "gōngxǐ fācái" (wishing you wealth and luck), "shēntǐ jiànkāng" (good health), "wànshì rúyì" (may everything go as you wish), "xuéyè jìnbù" (progress at school, a wish for pupils).
- [4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/chinese-street/26-red-envelopes-and-new-year-wishes/4/) — The famous joke: parents keep the yāsuìqián, the New Year money, "safe" for the child — and it never comes back.
- [5](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/chinese-street/26-red-envelopes-and-new-year-wishes/5/) — "hóngbāo" is a red envelope with money in it, given by elders to children at New Year, birthdays and weddings.
- [6](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/chinese-street/26-red-envelopes-and-new-year-wishes/6/) — "gōngxǐ fācái" means "wishing you wealth and luck!", the classic New Year wish to grown-ups; the answer is the same wish back.
- [7](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/chinese-street/26-red-envelopes-and-new-year-wishes/7/) — "hóngbāo ná lái" is a joke rhyme, "hand over the red envelope!", funny with your own close family but greedy-sounding with a friend's family.
- [10](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/chinese-street/26-red-envelopes-and-new-year-wishes/10/) — "xuéyè jìnbù" means "progress at school", a wish elders give to children; you answer "xièxie" and don't wish it back to elders.
- [11](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/chinese-street/26-red-envelopes-and-new-year-wishes/11/) — "wànshì rúyì" means "may everything go as you wish", a grand four-word wish to anyone.
- [15](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/chinese-street/26-red-envelopes-and-new-year-wishes/15/) — In your own zodiac year, běnmìngnián, some people wear red for luck.
- [16](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/chinese-street/26-red-envelopes-and-new-year-wishes/16/) — "shuāng shǒu jiē" means "take it with both hands"; both hands show respect for a gift, a cup of tea or a red envelope.
- [17](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/chinese-street/26-red-envelopes-and-new-year-wishes/17/) — "bié dāngmiàn chāi" means "don't open it in front of them", a parent's whispered reminder about presents and red envelopes.

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- ↑ back to [Chinese street](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/chinese-street/)