A Chinese podcast · Same story, 4 levels
成都：熊猫一天吃十四个小时
Chengdu: 17 Per Cent, and Fifty Times a Second
About this story
A panda absorbs only 17% of the bamboo it eats, so it eats 14 hours a day; Sichuan pepper buzzes at 50 times a second. 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 8 key vocabulary words such as 熊猫、竹子、花椒 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.
Read at your level
原文Read the complete story in Chinese. Reveal pinyin and English only when you need them.
English transcript reference
Today I'm in Chengdu.
This morning I went to see the pandas.
The panda is eating bamboo.
He doesn't look at me, he just eats.
I asked: how many hours a day does he eat?
Someone said: fourteen hours.
I said: fourteen hours?
He said: yes, he eats fourteen hours a day.
I said: why does he eat so much?
He said: because bamboo isn't good.
He said: when a panda eats bamboo, his body can only use 17 per cent.
I said: 17 per cent?
He said: yes, 17 per cent.
He said: so he has to eat 12 to 38 kilos a day.
I said: 38 kilos?
He said: yes, 38 kilos.
I said: do pandas eat meat too?
He said: very, very long ago, pandas ate meat.
He said: now when he eats meat, he doesn't even know it's meat.
I said: he doesn't know?
He said: right, he doesn't know.
He said: in 1987, we had six pandas here.
I said: six?
He said: yes, six.
He said: now there are 1,864 in the mountains.
In the afternoon I went to eat.
I ate a little, and my mouth went numb.
I asked: is this spicy?
She said: no, this is málà numbness.
She said: the numbness is Sichuan pepper, the heat is chilli.
I said: and what about numb versus hot?
She said: chilli is hot, numbness moves.
I said: moves?
She said: yes, fifty times a second.
I said: fifty times a second?
She said: yes, fifty times.
She said: your mouth thinks something is moving.
She said: but nothing is moving.
I said: is Sichuan pepper Chinese?
She said: yes, Chinese people have eaten it a very long time.
I said: and chilli?
She said: chilli came to China four hundred years ago.
I said: four hundred years?
She said: yes.
She said: in 1591 a Chinese book already had chilli in it.
She said: at that time nobody ate chilli.
I said: what was chilli then?
She said: back then, people looked at chilli, because chilli is pretty.
I thought: the panda eats meat and doesn't know.
I eat Sichuan pepper, and my mouth doesn't know either.
One ate for fourteen hours, one moved fifty times.
Tell me: what does our mouth actually know?
Listen again
Try it without the transcript and notice what sounds clearer.
What vocabulary does this episode teach?
词汇HSK 1. Fourteen hours of it, every day.
HSK 1. The panda eats meat and doesn't know.
HSK 1. Your mouth thinks something is moving.
Eats 12 to 38 kilos of bamboo a day.
A panda's body uses only 17 per cent of it.
Makes your mouth feel a buzz that isn't there.
Only arrived in China about 400 years ago.
Not heat. Fifty tiny pulses a second.
* beyond level超纲词
What grammar patterns appear in this episode?
语法因为 …
Gives the reason for what was just said.
他说：因为竹子不好。
所以 …
Gives the consequence of what was just said.
他说：所以他一天要吃十二到三十八公斤。
以为 …
Says someone believes something that is not in fact true.
她说：你的嘴以为有东西在动。
Proper nouns
专有名词Sources
来源Free account
Keep learning from this story
Create a free account to keep saved words and your preferred level together.
- Keep words with their story context
- Remember your preferred level
- Build your vocabulary over time