A Chinese podcast · Same story, 4 levels
1:25
佛罗里达花钱请人抓蟒蛇：一个人十天抓了 96 条
Florida Pays People to Hunt Pythons. One Man Caught 96 in 10 Days.
This is an HSK 2 Chinese listening episode that runs about 1 minute. 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 9 key vocabulary words such as 问题、别的、以前 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.
Florida has a big problem, and that problem is snakes.
There are just too many snakes there.
Some people say there are a hundred thousand of them.
These snakes are long and big; they eat small cats, small dogs, and other small animals too.
There used not to be this many snakes there — people brought them over.
Later the snakes escaped, and there got to be more and more of them, while the other animals got fewer and fewer.
People in Florida said: this cannot go on, let's think of something.
They asked everyone to go out and look for snakes together.
Whoever finds the most snakes gets ten thousand dollars.
This year more than nine hundred people came to look for snakes; in ten days they found two hundred and eighty in total.
The man who found the most is called Tom.
Tom has been hunting snakes for ten years already.
This time, he alone found ninety-six.
Ninety-six — nobody found more than him.
Tom got the ten thousand dollars.
But he did not want to spend the money on himself.
Tom runs a place for people who used to be soldiers.
He said: this money belongs to all of us.
Think about it: if there were a very long snake in your house, what would you do?
Try it without the transcript and notice what sounds clearer.
一个很大的问题 = a big problem. Also means "question" in a test or a conversation.
别的小动物 = the other small animals.
以前那里没有这么多蛇 = there used not to be this many snakes there.
越来越多 / 越来越少 — one of the most useful patterns in the language.
一共找到两百八十条 = they found two hundred and eighty in total.
他不想自己用 = he did not want to use it himself.
Burmese pythons — the animal the whole contest is about.
小动物 = small animals. 动 (move) + 物 (thing).
当过兵的人 = people who used to be soldiers, i.e. veterans.
* beyond level超纲词
越来越 + adj
"more and more …". Shows change over time, no comparison word needed.
蛇跑了出去，越来越多，别的动物越来越少。
Points at HOW or BY WHOM something happened, when the fact itself is already known.
以前那里没有这么多蛇，是人带过来的。
谁……，谁就……
"whoever …, that person then …". 就 links the condition to the result.
谁找到的蛇最多，谁就能拿到一万块钱。
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