A Chinese podcast · Same story, 4 levels
一个做了六十四年的土拨鼠研究，经费被砍了。教授把土拨鼠搬上了 OnlyFans。
A 64-Year Marmot Study Lost Its Funding. So the Professor Put the Marmots on OnlyFans.
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A 64-Year Marmot Study Lost Its Funding. So the Professor Put the Marmots on OnlyFans. HSK 5-6 Chinese listening practice.
This is an HSK 5-6 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 13 key vocabulary words such as 不断线、恰恰、财年 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
Start with a number: sixty-four years.
On a high mountain in Colorado there is a field research project that has run unbroken for sixty-four years, and its subject is marmots.
It is a small mountain animal, about the size of a cat, that hibernates through the winter.
Over those sixty-four years, researchers have climbed the mountain every year and recorded, one animal at a time: this year’s count, which one bore young, which one never came back.
There are very few unbroken decades-long wildlife studies anywhere in the world, and the value lies exactly in the word "unbroken".
The project is run by Dan Blumstein, a professor at UCLA.
The problem is money.
This kind of research runs on government science funding: the climb, the accommodation, the staff, all of it costs.
This year the NSF has paid out only a fraction of its usual level, and the White House has proposed cutting nearly half again in the next fiscal year.
Cut the funding and the sixty-four-year record breaks right here.
Blumstein came up with a move — a fairly absurd one.
He said: we have no money, but we have marmots, and sixty-four years of accumulated marmot photographs.
So they opened an account on OnlyFans.
That platform normally has nothing to do with alpine rodents, and does not sell this sort of content.
In the bio they wrote one line: uncensored marmots here.
Subscribe, and we will show you marmots.
They took in around four thousand dollars.
Four thousand dollars cannot save a sixty-four-year project, and nobody knows that better than they do.
But it accomplished, in passing, something they had always wanted: public science communication.
A great many people who would never in their lives have heard of the project found out it existed, through this absurd doorway.
A sixty-four-year data chain and a platform for selling photographs were, until now, two different worlds.
This year, one event tied them together.
Think about it: when the front door is shut, would you go and knock on one that seems completely unrelated?
Listen again
Try it without the transcript and notice what sounds clearer.
What vocabulary does this episode teach?
词汇价值恰恰在于那个「不断线」 = the value lies exactly in "unbroken".
价值恰恰在于 = the value lies exactly in.
在下一个财年再削减将近一半 = cutting nearly half again in the next fiscal year.
六十四年积累的土拨鼠照片 = sixty-four years of accumulated marmot photographs.
但这件事，顺带完成了另一件事 = but it accomplished, in passing, something else.
因为这个荒诞的入口 = through this absurd doorway.
再削减将近一半 = cutting nearly half again.
政府科研经费 = government science funding.
一个野外研究项目 = a field research project.
一个相当荒诞的招 = a fairly absurd move.
另一件他们一直想做的事：科普 = something they had always wanted: science communication.
一个六十四年的数据链 = a sixty-four-year data chain.
这里有没打码的土拨鼠 = uncensored marmots here.
What grammar patterns appear in this episode?
语法恰恰在于
"the value lies precisely in X". Points at the one thing that matters.
价值恰恰在于那个「不断线」。
顺带
"in passing, as a side effect".
但这件事，顺带完成了另一件他们一直想做的事。
当……的时候，你会不会……
Sets a condition, then turns it into a question for the listener.
当正门被关上的时候，你会不会去敲一扇看起来完全不相干的门？
Proper Nouns
专有名词Sources
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