A Chinese podcast · Same story, 4 levels
九死一生：Kai Sato 在太平洋漂流四十多天后获救
Kai Sato Survives 40 Days Adrift at Sea
About this story
A medium Chinese listening story: Kai Sato set out to sail solo to Hawaii, his mast snapped, and he drifted 40+ days across the Pacific, collecting water from the air and eating fish, before a cargo ship found him alive. HSK 4 Chinese listening practice.
This is an HSK 4 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 发现、简单、星期 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
This is a true, against-all-odds survival story.
Kai Sato is thirty-nine, from California.
On June 7th, he set out from California, hoping to sail alone to Hawaii for the first time.
Unexpectedly, partway there he hit heavy seas, and the boat's mast snapped.
The boat couldn't move and he couldn't turn back; all he could do was drift south, day by day, across the Pacific.
One man, one broken boat, surrounded by an ocean with no visible edge.
By July 7th, the fresh water he'd brought was gone.
To stay alive, he hung up plastic bags to collect the droplets of moisture in the air, and drank them one drop at a time.
When hungry, he ate a bit of oatmeal, plus the fish and squid that jumped aboard.
Using pipes and an oar, he made himself a simple sail and slowly worked toward where ships pass.
At the hardest point, he cried for a whole week, and even thought about just ending it all.
But in the end, he didn't give up.
On July 21st, a big cargo ship spotted him about nine hundred miles from Hawaii.
And so, after more than forty days adrift, Kai Sato came back alive.
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Try it without the transcript and notice what sounds clearer.
What vocabulary does this episode teach?
词汇一艘大货船...发现了他 = a big cargo ship spotted him.
做了一个简单的帆 = made a simple sail.
哭了整整一个星期 = cried for a whole week.
吃点麦片 = ate a bit of oatmeal.
甚至想过，就这样结束算了 = even thought about ending it.
他最后没有放弃 = in the end he didn't give up.
船的桅杆断了 = the boat's mast snapped.
他带的淡水喝完了 = the fresh water he brought was gone.
做了一个简单的帆 = made a simple sail.
* beyond level超纲词
What grammar patterns appear in this episode?
语法一 X 一 X 地
一滴一滴地 = "drop by drop"; the pattern means "X by X, little by little".
收集空气里的水珠，一滴一滴地喝。
就这样，……
就这样 = "and just like that / in this way".
就这样，飘了四十多天以后，Kai Sato 活着回来了。
Proper nouns
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