A Chinese podcast · Same story, 4 levels
7.4 级地震震塌哥伦比亚西部。废墟下，一个被压住的人说：我这里还有一个孩子。
A Magnitude 7.4 Quake Flattened Western Colombia. Under the Rubble, a Trapped Man Said: 'I'm With a Baby.'
About this story
A Magnitude 7.4 Quake Flattened Western Colombia. Under the Rubble, a Trapped Man Said: 'I'm With a Baby.'. HSK 2 Chinese listening practice.
This is an HSK 2 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 14 key vocabulary words such as 所有、机器、其中 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
On the tenth of August, a very large earthquake struck western Colombia.
How large was it?
It was the largest one Colombia has had in a hundred years.
After the quake, more than sixteen hundred buildings were damaged.
More than sixty of them came down completely.
A lot of people were still under the buildings.
What follows was filmed by someone on a phone.
That day, between Pereira and Cali, a building collapsed.
A lot of people were standing on top of it, all of them there to pull people out.
They had no heavy machinery, so they used their hands, bit by bit.
Block by block, very slowly.
Then one of them raised a hand and told everyone to stop talking.
Every one of them went quiet.
They wanted to listen for whether there was any sound below.
There was. There really was.
Below, someone was speaking.
The people above asked him: are you alone?
The man below said: no.
Down here with me, there is a baby.
The moment the people above heard that, they all came over.
Five of them together lifted the stones away, one block at a time.
One man’s hand reached slowly down.
Then everyone saw the baby.
A tiny baby, crying.
The five of them together, very slowly, lifted the baby out.
The moment the baby came out, they shouted for a doctor: quick!
A doctor came and carried the baby away.
And those five men stood there and let out a shout.
You can hear them on the recording, shouting and laughing at once.
But it was not over.
There was still someone below.
The man who had said, "down here with me, there is a baby".
He was down there himself, and he could not get out.
His two hands had been holding that baby up the whole time.
The people above asked his name, and he did not give it.
What he spoke about first was the baby.
Once those five men had finished shouting, they went back down.
They wanted to get him out too.
In the end, more than two hundred people did not come out of this earthquake.
But that morning, under that broken building, one man thought first of someone other than himself.
Think about it: in that moment, what was going through his mind?
Listen again
Try it without the transcript and notice what sounds clearer.
What vocabulary does this episode teach?
词汇所有的人都安静了下来 = every one of them went quiet.
他们没有大机器 = they had no heavy machinery.
其中六十多个，整个倒了下来 = more than sixty of them came down completely.
很小的一个孩子，在哭 = a tiny baby, crying.
最后有两百多人，没有出来 = in the end more than two hundred did not come out.
有一个人先想的不是自己 = one man thought first of someone other than himself.
发生了很大的地震 = a very large earthquake struck.
是有人用手机拍下来的 = it was filmed by someone on a phone.
一个楼倒了 = a building collapsed.
所有的人都安静了下来 = every one of them went quiet.
有一个人举起手 = one of them raised a hand.
把孩子抱了出来 = lifted the baby out.
都是来救人的 = all of them there to pull people out.
你可以听见他们的声音 = you can hear them.
What grammar patterns appear in this episode?
语法一……就……
"the moment A, then B". Ties the hearing and the reaction together.
上面的人一听，都过来了。
又……又……
"both A and B at once" — shouting and laughing in the same breath.
又叫又笑。
一直
"the whole time, without stopping". Carries the weight of how long he held on.
他的两只手，一直举着那个孩子。
Proper Nouns
专有名词Sources
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