--- title: Street chatter: wow, really?, cool! — a lesson of Mova's school · trees and pragmatics description: «Street chatter: wow, really?, cool!», a lesson of the chinese street course of Mova's primary school, sentence by sentence with dependency trees and pragmatics. It begins: Most of what you hear from Ming and his friends isn't sentences at all — it's little noises and quick words: āiyā!, wa!, zhēn d --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/chinese-street/30-street-chatter-wow-really-cool/) [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/) / Street chatter: wow, really?, cool! # Street chatter: wow, really?, cool! Lesson 30 of the chinese street course of Mova's primary school: 16 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/30-street-chatter-wow-really-cool/). - [0](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/chinese-street/30-street-chatter-wow-really-cool/0/) — Most of what you hear from Ming and his friends isn't sentences at all — it's little noises and quick words: āiyā!, wa!, zhēn de ma?, kù! - [1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/chinese-street/30-street-chatter-wow-really-cool/1/) — Learn these and you sound like you belong, even with ten words of Chinese. - [3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/chinese-street/30-street-chatter-wow-really-cool/3/) — Ming's granny drops a bowl — āiyā! - [4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/chinese-street/30-street-chatter-wow-really-cool/4/) — His mum sees the muddy floor — āiyā! - [5](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/chinese-street/30-street-chatter-wow-really-cool/5/) — His dad hears good news — āiyā! - [6](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/chinese-street/30-street-chatter-wow-really-cool/6/) — It can be cross, surprised or fond, so you watch the face, not the word. - [7](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/chinese-street/30-street-chatter-wow-really-cool/7/) — Your friend says he got a hundred marks. - [8](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/chinese-street/30-street-chatter-wow-really-cool/8/) — You can gasp «zhēn de ma?» (really?) or «bù huì ba!» (no way!), and when he shows you the test, «lìhai!» or «tài niú le!» — literally «too cow», meaning awesome. - [11](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/chinese-street/30-street-chatter-wow-really-cool/11/) — āiyā («IGH-yah») means oh no, oh dear or oh my; everyone says it, and it can be cross, surprised or fond, so you read the face. - [12](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/chinese-street/30-street-chatter-wow-really-cool/12/) — wa («wah!», high and long) means wow, said just like in English when something is amazing. - [14](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/chinese-street/30-street-chatter-wow-really-cool/14/) — bù huì ba («BOO HWAY ba») means no way, you're kidding; it is disbelief, not a refusal, and the usual reply is zhēn de! - [15](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/chinese-street/30-street-chatter-wow-really-cool/15/) — lìhai («LEE-high») means amazing, so good, as in nǐ hǎo lìhai!; it also means fierce, so a lìhai teacher is a strict one. - [16](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/chinese-street/30-street-chatter-wow-really-cool/16/) — tài niú le («TIGH NYO luh», literally «too cow») is kids' and teenagers' slang for awesome; to grandparents it may sound odd or cheeky, and niú alone is cow. - [17](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/chinese-street/30-street-chatter-wow-really-cool/17/) — kù («koo!», falling) means cool and was borrowed from English; hǎo kù! means so cool. - [19](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/chinese-street/30-street-chatter-wow-really-cool/19/) — kuài kàn («KWIGH KAHN») means look, quick!; the answer is nǎr? (where?), and kàn falls, while dipping kǎn means chop. - [20](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/chinese-street/30-street-chatter-wow-really-cool/20/) — zěnme le («DZUN-muh luh») means what's up, what happened?; asking it gently is the kind thing when a friend is quiet, and the answer may be méi shìr or the real story. - ← previous: [Talking to the friend's grandparents](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/chinese-street/29-talking-to-the-friends-grandparents/) - next →: [Olympiad: tone detectives and number puzzles ★★★](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/chinese-street/31-olympiad-tone-and-number-puzzles/) - ↑ back to [Chinese street](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/chinese-street/)