A Chinese podcast · Same story, 4 levels
两亿四千五百万美元，一分钱都不是抢来的：一个二十二岁的人打了两年电话，每一笔都是对方自己交出去的
Phone Calls Stole $245 Million in Crypto
About this story
A 22-year-old pleaded guilty in September 2026 to a conspiracy that took more than $245 million in cryptocurrency over two years - one of the largest crypto thefts in US history. Nothing was hacked. Callers impersonated support staff, manufactured trust and urgency, and had victims read their own security codes aloud. 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 钱、工作、说 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
Today we are talking about money.
About a great deal of money.
There is a young man, twenty-two years old this year.
Twenty-two is still young.
He does not have a job.
But he has a lot of money.
How much money does he have?
More than two hundred million dollars.
More than two hundred million dollars is a very great deal of money.
If a person works for a year, how much money can they have?
Not much.
But in one year he had this much.
Where did his money come from?
It was other people's.
He took other people's money away.
He did not go to their houses.
What he did was very small.
He called people on the phone.
Just phoned them.
On the phone he said: hello.
He said: I am from that big company.
He said: there is a problem with your money.
He said: do one thing, and there will be no problem with your money.
The person heard that and said: all right, I will.
He said: have a look at your phone.
He said: there are some characters on your phone.
He said: give me those characters.
And the person gave them to him.
After they gave them, that person's money was gone.
How much money did that person have?
A great deal.
All of it was gone.
This young man did not do it on his own.
He did it together with other people.
They did it for two years.
Over those two years, they phoned a lot of people.
They took away more than two hundred million dollars.
And after they took the money, what did they do?
They bought things.
They bought over thirty cars.
He also bought a watch.
That watch — two million dollars.
One watch, two million dollars.
They bought big houses too.
Later, people found him.
Now he says: I did it.
He will not be going home for many years.
And he is still young.
Here is what I want to say.
He took away more than two hundred million dollars.
What did he use?
A telephone.
Those people's money — they handed it over themselves.
They gave him those characters.
Think about it:
Someone phones you.
He says: I am from that big company.
He says: there is a problem with your money.
How do you know who he is?
Listen again
Try it without the transcript and notice what sounds clearer.
What vocabulary does this episode teach?
词汇HSK 1. Said in the first line and never let go of.
HSK 1. 他没有工作 — the detail that eventually gave him away.
HSK 1. Repeated seven times in the phone call — saying is the whole crime.
HSK 1. Cars, a watch, houses — what $245 million turns into.
HSK 2. The verb that does the theft: 你把那几个字给我。
HSK 2. 你怎么知道他是谁？— the closing question, and the whole lesson.
The only tool used. 他用的东西是什么？是电话。
HSK 2. Where the codes appear that the victim reads out.
HSK 2. 我是那个大公司的人 — the sentence that buys trust in one line.
The unit the whole story is measured in.
Chinese counts in 万 and 亿, so 两亿多 is how this number is actually said.
HSK 3. Twenty-two, no job, and $245 million — the mismatch is the story.
* beyond level超纲词
What grammar patterns appear in this episode?
语法把 + object + verb
Moves the object in front of the verb to say what was done to it. Chinese reaches for 把 whenever something is handed over, taken, or moved.
他把别人的钱拿走了。
你把那几个字给我。
有多少……？
How much / how many? Chinese asks with 有多少 and then answers with a bare number on the next line — which is how this episode lands each figure.
他有多少钱？
那个人有多少钱？
Emphasises how or by whom something was done, rather than that it happened. Here it puts all the weight on who handed the money over.
那些人的钱，是他们自己给出去的。
Proper nouns
专有名词Sources
来源Free account
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