Updated July 2026
What does 这河里吗 mean?
这河里吗 (zhè hé lǐ ma) means is this even reasonable? in internet Chinese slang. Comic disbelief: "is this even reasonable?" A deliberate homophone of 这合理吗 (zhè hélǐ ma). Literally, it means "is this in the river?".
Hear it explained
A 30-second take on 这河里吗 — what it means, where it came from, and how to use it.
这合理吗 means is this reasonable. Type it quickly and you get 这河里吗 — is this in the river. The internet kept the typo. 他迟到两小时还怪我，这河里吗？ Two hours late and he blamed me. Is that in the river? Somehow the wrong characters made it better.
Example
他迟到两小时还怪我，这河里吗？
Tā chídào liǎng xiǎoshí hái guài wǒ, zhè hé lǐ ma?
He was two hours late and still blamed me — is that even reasonable?
Where 这河里吗 comes from
这合理吗 means "is this reasonable". 合理 and 河里 ("in the river") are homophones, so the wrong characters got typed, then kept. The absurd literal image suits the absurd situations it gets used for.
Related slang
A Henan-dialect exclamation — "oh my god", "wow". It carries genuine admiration as often as shock, so it usually lands warm rather than alarmed.
Wuhan-dialect 算了 ("let it go"), written as "garlic bird". Used to take the heat out of an argument — drop it, everyone has it hard enough.
FAQ
Free account
Learn slang you can actually hear
A dictionary entry tells you what it means — the episodes let you hear how people say it. A free account keeps every word you save together with the audio it came from, at a level you understand.
- Hear slang in natural audio
- Keep vocab and transcript progress
- Continue at your level