A Chinese podcast · Same story, 4 levels
警察用3D打印机做了个假摄像头当诱饵。砸了它的年轻人，被控三条重罪。
Florida Vandal Charged Over $5 Fake Camera
About this story
Florida Vandal Charged Over $5 Fake Camera. 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 6 key vocabulary words such as 千、块、一样 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
A small city in Florida has many cameras along its roads.
This kind of camera does not look at people; it looks at license plates.
Every car that drives past has its plate written down.
This year, the cameras on this road were destroyed by someone.
The police did not know who did it, so they thought of a plan.
They made a fake camera.
They did not buy it. An officer printed it at home on a printer.
A plastic shell that looked exactly like the real thing.
When it was finished, they put it beside that road.
Two hours later, a man came.
He cut the fake camera down and destroyed it.
The police came and arrested him.
Now this man faces three charges, and all of them are felonies.
Why are they so serious?
Because every one of these charges depends on one thing: how much what you broke was worth.
It only counts as a charge if it is over a thousand.
But what he broke was a plastic shell an officer printed at home.
How much is that plastic shell worth?
That plastic shell is not worth a thousand.
The mayor of the city says she did not know about the fake camera either.
Think about it:
He thought he had destroyed something worth thousands.
What he destroyed was a plastic shell.
So how much did he really destroy?
Listen again
Try it without the transcript and notice what sounds clearer.
What vocabulary does this episode teach?
词汇一千块以上，才算一条 — only over a thousand does it count as a charge.
The spoken word for a dollar or a yuan: 一千块.
看上去和真的一样 — it looked the same as the real one.
The pair the whole story turns on: 真 and 假.
假的摄像头 — a fake camera.
这个塑料壳，值多少钱？ — What is this plastic shell worth?
* beyond level超纲词
What grammar patterns appear in this episode?
语法把 + object + verb
Puts the object before the verb to say what was done TO it. Common with 弄坏, 抓, 剪下来.
他把假摄像头剪下来。 — He cut the fake camera down.
警察来了，把他抓了。 — The police came and arrested him.
被 + verb
The passive. Something has this done to it, often something unwanted.
车牌都被记下来。 — Every plate gets recorded.
这条路上的摄像头，被人弄坏了。 — The cameras on this road were destroyed by someone.
……以上，才……
"Only above X does Y hold." 才 marks a condition that must be met first.
一千块以上，才算一条。 — Only over a thousand does it count as a charge.
Proper nouns
专有名词Sources
来源Free account
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