A Chinese podcast · Same story, 4 levels
2:03
哥伦比亚新总统在卡利宣誓：前总统锁了军营，也没来现场
Colombia Swore In a New President in a University Arena. The Old One Locked the Barracks and Stayed Home.
This is an HSK 5-6 Chinese listening episode that runs about 2 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 11 key vocabulary words such as 仪式、统帅、来源 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 the complete story in Chinese. Reveal pinyin and English only when you need them.
This afternoon, Colombia got a new president.
But what made the news is why the inauguration was held in Cali.
By the rules, a new president has to swear an oath in public before he formally takes office.
For more than a hundred years, that ceremony has been fixed in the capital, Bogotá.
Today's was held in Cali, hundreds of kilometres away.
It began with an idea from the incoming president, Espriella: he wanted to swear the oath inside a military barracks.
The moment the plan was announced, constitutional scholars delivered a verdict: likely unconstitutional.
The reasoning is not complicated. The president is commander of the armed forces, but his power comes from votes, not from the army.
Swearing the oath in a barracks moves the source of that power from the people toward the military.
Petro, still in office at the time, responded bluntly: he ordered every military facility closed and barred from the ceremony.
He then said a line that went round the whole country: the president obeys the people, not the military.
And there it locked: one side insisting on going, the other side locking the door.
Congress finally brokered a compromise, settling on an arena at a university in Cali.
About six thousand people attended today, among them the King of Spain.
More notable still: Petro himself did not attend.
In most countries the single most important image of a handover is the outgoing leader placing the symbols of power into his successor's hands.
That is a country telling itself: we can change leaders peacefully.
Twenty-five lawmakers from his camp were absent as well.
So today's inauguration has three things wrong with it: the venue was forced, the predecessor was absent, and lawmakers boycotted.
Normally, a new president's first day is the most whole a country looks all year.
Colombia did not get that day today.
The cost will not show up immediately; it will show up in every argument from here on.
Think about it: when a country changes leaders, how much does the form of the ceremony really matter?
Is it a formality, or is it part of the power itself?
Try it without the transcript and notice what sounds clearer.
这场仪式 = this ceremony. The whole episode is about its form.
三军统帅 = commander of the three services.
权力的来源 = the source of power — the central idea here.
象征权力的东西 = the objects that symbolise power.
交给继任者 = hand it to the successor.
走个过场 = to go through the motions.
国会折中 = Congress brokered a compromise.
Without it, he is not formally president.
The venue he wanted; the origin of the whole dispute.
涉嫌违宪 = suspected of being unconstitutional.
尚未卸任的 Petro = Petro, still in office at the time.
* beyond level超纲词
等于把 A 从 B 挪向 C
"amounts to moving A from B toward C" — names what an action really does.
在军营宣誓，等于把权力的来源，从人民挪向军队。
更值得注意的是……
"more notable still …" — a host's move to the sharper point.
更值得注意的是，Petro 本人没有出席。
是 A，还是 B？
Poses the choice the whole piece has been building toward.
是走个过场，还是本身就是权力的一部分？
Free account
Create a free account to keep saved words and your preferred level together.