A Chinese podcast · Same story, 4 levels
天上掉快递：亚马逊无人机让得州小城居民受不了
Boxes Falling From the Sky: Amazon's Delivery Drones Are Driving a Texas Suburb Up the Wall
About this story
Richardson, a Dallas suburb, is one of the first US cities where Amazon is testing Prime Air. Dozens of 83-pound drones a day hover over yards and drop boxes; one dropped a package in a pool, another hit an apartment building. Residents call it a 'drone highway' and hate the noise and cameras — while Amazon plans 100 more towns. Chinese listening practice at four levels. HSK 1 Chinese listening practice.
This is an HSK 1 Chinese listening episode that runs about 3 minutes. The full Mandarin script is shown with tap-for-pinyin and a line-by-line English translation, so you can listen and read at once — comprehensible input in the sense of Stephen Krashen's i+1 theory. It teaches 12 key vocabulary words such as 家、工作、茶 and walks through 3 grammar patterns, each explained in English with examples. The same news story is retold at 4 difficulty levels — use the level selector above to find the version that is challenging but still understandable for you.
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原文Read the complete story in Chinese. Reveal pinyin and English only when you need them.
English transcript reference
Do you work from home?
Sometimes I work from home.
When I work from home, I like to sit on my own and drink a cup of tea.
Do you buy things online?
I've bought lots of things online.
Who brings the things I buy?
Usually, it's a person who drives them over.
But now, in a small American city, things arrive by air.
Is it a plane?
It's not a plane, it's a drone.
A drone is a thing that flies, with nobody inside flying it.
In this small city, when you buy something online, a drone brings it to your home.
This drone is big, and heavy too.
The drone flies over your home, flies very slowly, and comes down a little.
Then the thing you bought comes down from above.
Every day, lots and lots of drones fly back and forth over this small city.
Do the people in this small city like the drones?
Lots of them don't.
One person said: I work from home, and every day I hear the drones.
Another person said: the drones fly in the morning, they fly in the afternoon, they fly all day.
Some people don't like the drones' noise.
Some people don't like the cameras on the drones.
One person said: today is Sunday, can't we have one day without this noise?
Sometimes the drones get things wrong, too.
One drone dropped a package into water.
Another drone flew into a big building.
But the company delivering the packages says lots of people like the drones.
The company says that later, more than a hundred cities will have drone deliveries.
There's a woman who doesn't like the drones, and her daughter wanted to make something to eat, but there was no meat at home.
So her daughter bought meat online, and a drone brought it.
If lots of drones flew over your home every day, would you like it?
Listen again
Try it without the transcript and notice what sounds clearer.
What vocabulary does this episode teach?
词汇HSK 1. 你在家里工作吗？
HSK 1. 我有的时候在家里工作.
HSK 1. 喝一杯茶.
HSK 1. 是飞机吗？不是飞机，是无人机.
HSK 1. 开车送来 = drive it over.
HSK 1. 今天是星期天.
无 (without) + 人 (person) + 机 (machine).
飞来飞去 = fly back and forth.
无人机送到你家.
每天都有无人机的声音.
你在网上买东西吗？
无人机上面的相机.
* beyond level超纲词
What grammar patterns appear in this episode?
语法V 来 V 去
To do something back and forth, over and over.
每天，有很多很多无人机，在这个小城飞来飞去。
能不能……？
Could we…? — a pleading question.
一个人说：今天是星期天，我们能不能有一天，没有这个声音？
Proper Nouns
专有名词Free account
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