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title: Counting 1 to 10, on one hand — a lesson of Mova's school · trees and pragmatics
description: «Counting 1 to 10, on one hand», a lesson of the chinese street course of Mova's primary school, sentence by sentence with dependency trees and pragmatics. It begins: Ming counts to ten while you hide: yī, èr, sān, sì, wǔ, liù, qī, bā, jiǔ, shí!
---

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# Counting 1 to 10, on one hand

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Lesson 6 of the chinese street course of Mova's primary school: 10 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/6-counting-one-to-ten/).

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- [0](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/chinese-street/6-counting-one-to-ten/0/) — Ming counts to ten while you hide: yī, èr, sān, sì, wǔ, liù, qī, bā, jiǔ, shí!
- [1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/chinese-street/6-counting-one-to-ten/1/) — You learn it by ear, the way kids pick up a counting rhyme.
- [2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/chinese-street/6-counting-one-to-ten/2/) — Chinese hands count differently too.
- [4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/chinese-street/6-counting-one-to-ten/4/) — Some numbers bring luck because of what they sound like: bā (8) rhymes with fā (get rich), and sì (4) sounds like sǐ (die), so many families avoid it in house numbers and gifts.
- [5](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/chinese-street/6-counting-one-to-ten/5/) — Two tricky bits: for «two of something» you say liǎng, not èr; and on the phone people read 1 as yāo so it can't be confused with qī (7).
- [6](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/chinese-street/6-counting-one-to-ten/6/) — yī («ee», high) is one; it changes tone before other words, as in yí ge (one of) and yì tiān (one day).
- [7](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/chinese-street/6-counting-one-to-ten/7/) — èr («ar!» like a pirate, falling) is two when counting; for two of something you say liǎng.
- [10](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/chinese-street/6-counting-one-to-ten/10/) — wǔ («woo», dipping) is five, five fingers spread.
- [13](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/chinese-street/6-counting-one-to-ten/13/) — bā («bah», high) is eight, the luckiest number because it rhymes with fā (to get rich); shown as an L of thumb and index finger, which is not pointing a gun at anyone.
- [17](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/chinese-street/6-counting-one-to-ten/17/) — yāo («yow», high) is one when reading out phone, room or bus numbers digit by digit, so it isn't mixed up with qī (seven).

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- ← previous: [Names and "how old are you?"](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/chinese-street/5-names-and-how-old/)
- next →: [Counting to 100 and lucky numbers](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/chinese-street/7-counting-to-a-hundred-lucky-numbers/)
- ↑ back to [Chinese street](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/chinese-street/)