A Chinese podcast · Same story, 4 levels
北爱尔兰卖酒太难，德国超市利德尔干脆在店里开了一家酒吧
Selling Alcohol Is So Hard in Northern Ireland That Lidl Opened a Pub Inside Its Supermarket
About this story
Northern Ireland's century-old liquor licensing makes it almost impossible for a supermarket to sell alcohol, so Lidl got a pub licence instead and opened the Middle Ale inside its new Belfast store — trolley-shaped seats, own-brand crisps, bouncers and a first-night fight included. The stunt has reopened the debate over relaxing the law. Chinese listening practice at four levels. 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 12 key vocabulary words such as 超市、难、必须 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
Do you go to the supermarket to buy things?
In a supermarket, can you have a drink?
In a lot of supermarkets, you can't.
But now there's a supermarket with a pub inside it.
You can shop in the supermarket, and you can also sit down for a beer.
The supermarket is called Lidl, and it's a German chain.
This store is in Northern Ireland.
In Northern Ireland, selling alcohol is very hard.
If you want to sell alcohol, you must have a licence.
There are almost no new licences, so you can only buy one that somebody else isn't using.
A licence can cost more than a hundred thousand pounds, which is very expensive.
This supermarket wanted to sell alcohol, but it couldn't get a licence.
So what could it do?
The supermarket came up with an idea: don't sell alcohol, open a pub.
And the supermarket did get a pub licence.
So now the supermarket has a pub.
In the pub, customers can drink, and they can also buy alcohol to take away.
This pub is very interesting.
The pub's colours are the same as the supermarket's: red, yellow and blue.
The chairs in the pub look a lot like the supermarket's shopping trolleys.
The food in the pub is the supermarket's own crisps.
Lots of people come to this pub, and some have even flown in from America and New Zealand.
One woman said: if I forget to buy something, I just come back to the supermarket and have another drink.
Some nights there are too many people in the pub.
The supermarket had to hire bouncers.
On the first night, some people got into a fight in the pub, and the police came too.
Now lots of people in Northern Ireland have started arguing again: selling alcohol is so hard, should the rules change?
Some people say yes, because then the city would have more fun places to go.
But pub owners who already have licences say no, because they paid a lot of money for them.
Do you think selling alcohol should be a bit harder, or a bit easier?
Listen again
Try it without the transcript and notice what sounds clearer.
What vocabulary does this episode teach?
词汇HSK 2. 这家超市叫利德尔.
HSK 2. 在北爱尔兰，卖酒非常难.
HSK 2. 你想卖酒，必须有卖酒的许可.
HSK 2. 一个许可，要十几万英镑，非常贵.
HSK 2. 酒吧里的颜色，和超市一样.
HSK 2. 我忘了买东西.
超市里有一个酒吧.
新的许可几乎没有.
HSK 3. 坐下来喝一杯啤酒.
HSK 3. 超市想了一个办法.
HSK 3. 很多人又开始讨论.
超市只好请了保安.
* beyond level超纲词
What grammar patterns appear in this episode?
语法只能 + verb
Can only… — there is no other choice.
新的许可几乎没有，你只能买别人不用的许可。
A，还是 B？
A or B? — a choice question.
你觉得，卖酒应该难一点，还是容易一点？
……，因为……
Gives the reason after the statement.
可是已经有许可的酒吧老板说，不要改，因为他们花了很多钱买许可。
Proper Nouns
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