A Chinese podcast · Same story, 4 levels

《每日邮报》说找到了隐居十七年的 Meg White,发了十几张跟拍照片。照片上的人不是她。
The Daily Mail Said It Found Meg White After 17 Years and Ran a Dozen Photos. The Woman in Them Wasn’t Her.
About this story
The Daily Mail Said It Found Meg White After 17 Years and Ran a Dozen Photos. The Woman in Them Wasn’t Her. HSK 2 Chinese listening practice.
This is an HSK 2 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 7 key vocabulary words such as 报纸、认识、外面 and walks through 2 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
There was once a drummer called Meg White, and she was in a very famous band.
That band — a lot of people have heard it.
Later the band ended, and she stopped appearing.
For seventeen years, nobody saw her out in public.
On the sixth of August, a British newspaper published a report.
The report said: we have found her.
Below it were more than ten photos, all taken covertly.
The newspaper said: this is the first time she has been photographed in seventeen years.
But here there is a problem.
The reporter who took the photos walked up and asked her.
He asked: are you Meg White?
That person laughed, and said: you have got the wrong person, I am not her.
She said that sentence, and the newspaper still ran the photos.
A few days later, someone who knows Meg saw the photos.
She said: the person in them is not Meg, it is a friend of Meg’s.
So the newspaper took the article and the photos off the internet — with no correction and no apology.
So the situation now is this:
A person who did not want to be seen still has not been seen.
And a person with nothing to do with any of it was followed for days, photographed, and sent to the whole world.
Think about it:
If someone mistook you for another person and published your photo, what would you do?
Listen again
Try it without the transcript and notice what sounds clearer.
What vocabulary does this episode teach?
词汇The British paper that ran the photographs.
Her only connection to the story is that she 认识 Meg.
没有人在外面看见过她 — nobody saw her out in public.
The closing question: 你怎么办?
偷偷拍的照片 — covertly taken photographs.
The 记者 asked her, was told he was wrong, and published anyway.
没有更正,也没有道歉 — no correction and no apology.
* beyond level超纲词
What grammar patterns appear in this episode?
语法被 + verb
The passive marker: the subject has something done to it.
她第一次被拍到。 — She was photographed for the first time.
一个不想被人看见的人 — a person who does not want to be seen
还是 + verb
Does it anyway, despite what came before.
报纸还是把照片发了出来。 — The newspaper published the photos anyway.
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