A Chinese podcast · Same story, 4 levels
法国的鳄鱼蛋第一次没用保温箱，自己孵出来了——因为沙子整个夏天都够热。
Ten Nile Crocodiles Hatched in a French Park With No Incubator, Because the Sand Held 30°C for Three Straight Months.
About this story
Ten Nile Crocodiles Hatched in a French Park With No Incubator, Because the Sand Held 30°C for Three Straight Months. HSK 1 Chinese listening practice.
This is an HSK 1 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 热、月、太 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.
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原文Read the complete story in Chinese. Reveal pinyin and English only when you need them.
English transcript reference
There is a zoo in France.
In the zoo there are crocodiles.
Crocodiles lay eggs.
A crocodile's eggs need heat.
If the eggs are not hot, the baby crocodiles cannot come out.
How hot do the eggs need to be?
Thirty degrees.
Thirty degrees is hot.
One day at thirty degrees is not enough.
Ten days at thirty degrees is not enough either.
It has to be three months, thirty degrees every day.
Three months is a long time.
For three months, every day has to be thirty degrees.
The weather in France is not that hot.
In the past, people had to help the crocodiles.
People helped: they took the eggs and put them into hot sand.
There, it is thirty degrees every day.
Three months later, the baby crocodiles came out.
Every year, people helped.
Year after year, people helped.
This year, the weather was different.
This year France was hot — very, very hot.
The sun was strong and the sand was hot.
After dark, the sand was hot too.
The eggs in the sand were hot in the day, and hot after dark.
Hot for one day, hot for two days, hot for three whole months.
The eggs in the sand were at thirty degrees every day.
Nobody helped.
Ten baby crocodiles came out.
Ten baby crocodiles.
That had never happened before.
Are the people at the zoo happy?
He says: this is good.
He also says: this is not good.
He says: France is too hot.
France was not this hot before.
The weather in France is now as hot as the crocodiles' home.
The crocodiles' home is not in France.
Now France is that hot too.
Sand cannot speak.
But in that sand, for three months, every day was thirty degrees.
Three months, thirty degrees every day.
Nobody helped, and it still worked.
Think about it:
Can a good thing also be a bad thing?
Listen again
Try it without the transcript and notice what sounds clearer.
What vocabulary does this episode teach?
词汇The word the whole episode is built on: 蛋要热 — the eggs need heat.
三个月 — three months, the length the heat had to hold.
法国太热了 — France is too hot. 太 carries a complaint.
动物园的人高兴吗？ — Are the people at the zoo happy?
Literally "crocodile fish" — 鱼 shows up in many water-animal names.
鳄鱼下蛋 — crocodiles lay eggs.
* beyond level超纲词
What grammar patterns appear in this episode?
语法……，不行
"That will not do." A flat, very common way to reject an option.
一天三十度，不行。 — One day at thirty degrees will not do.
十天三十度，也不行。 — Ten days will not do either.
和……一样
"The same as ..." — puts two things side by side.
法国的天，和鳄鱼的家一样热。 — The weather in France is as hot as the crocodiles’ home.
Proper Nouns
专有名词Sources
来源Free account
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