A Chinese podcast · Same story, 4 levels
一个奇怪的新闻：她"被结婚"了 13 年
A Strange News Story: Married for 13 Years Without Knowing
About this story
A Strange News Story: Married for 13 Years Without Knowing. HSK 1 Chinese listening practice.
This is an HSK 1 Chinese listening episode that runs about 4 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 听、看、知道 and walks through 4 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
Today I'll tell you a Chinese news story.
It's a strange one.
The person in the story —
let's call her Xiao Zhang.
Xiao Zhang is a woman born in 1993.
She's 33 this year.
She works in Beijing.
One day last November,
she was at work.
Her phone rang.
It was a number she didn't recognize.
She answered.
The voice on the line said:
"I'm with the police.
"Are you Xiao Zhang?
"Your ID number is XXX.
"In 2013 you married someone.
"You have a son.
"He's 12 this year.
Xiao Zhang was shocked.
She thought:
in 2013 I was only 20.
I was in university in Beijing.
I've never been married.
I've never been to that place either.
She said:
"Are you a scammer?
"Are you trying to steal money from me?
Xiao Zhang hung up.
But she was still a little uneasy.
She looked it up online.
She found:
that number that called her,
really was a police line.
Then she looked up herself.
The computer said:
Xiao Zhang, married.
Marriage date: October 30, 2013.
Xiao Zhang was stunned.
She really was "married."
And had a 12-year-old "son."
But she didn't know it.
How could this happen?
Because another woman
used Xiao Zhang's ID number.
And used that number to register a marriage.
That woman
pretended to be Xiao Zhang.
Xiao Zhang thought:
"So what do I do now?
"I've never been married.
"I want to remove this 'marriage.'
She went to the civil affairs office.
That's the office that handles marriages.
Civil affairs said:
"You're not the person who registered.
"We can't help you.
"You need to go to the police.
She went to the police.
The police said:
"This isn't our case.
"You need to go to police in a different place.
The police in that other place said:
"This isn't our case either.
"You need to go to police where your hukou is.
The hometown police said:
"Not ours either.
"You need to go to police in Shaanxi.
Half a year has passed,
and Xiao Zhang is still "married."
She's never gotten married,
but the computer says she has.
She thought:
"Later if I want to get married myself, what then?
This story
isn't over yet.
In May,
something new happened.
A court said:
"Your case —
"we'll take a look.
Hopefully this time there'll be a good outcome.
I read this news,
and I thought:
we all have ID cards.
Our ID cards have our numbers.
If someone uses our number
to do something bad,
that's a very big deal.
Finally I'll ask you:
your ID card —
have you looked at it?
Does anyone else know your number?
Think about it.
Okay.
That's all for today.
Talk tomorrow.
Listen again
Try it without the transcript and notice what sounds clearer.
What vocabulary does this episode teach?
词汇To listen, to hear. 听了 (heard) — Xiao Zhang 听了 the news and was stunned.
To look at. She 看 the government website and saw her own name listed as married.
To know (a fact). She 不知道 — she didn't know — that she'd been registered as married for 12 years.
To think. She 想: how could this happen? Common HSK 1 verb for internal reasoning.
A phone, a phone call. The whole story starts with a 电话 — a stranger calling her from Shaanxi.
China — where this story takes place.
News. The narrator's framing: 'today I'll tell you a Chinese news story.'
Police. Both Xiao Zhang and the husband Xiao Liu try to go to 警察, but the case bounces between police stations in three different places.
National ID card. The 身份证 number is what was stolen and reused to register the fake marriage.
To get married. The whole episode is about a 结婚 that exists in the system but never actually happened.
The Civil Affairs Bureau — the Chinese government office that handles marriage registrations and cancellations.
To be at ease, to set one's mind at rest. 不放心 = uneasy. After hanging up, she was 不放心 and looked it up online — that's how she discovered the truth.
* beyond level超纲词
What grammar patterns appear in this episode?
语法S + 给 + Y + Verb (do something for/to Y)
给 marks a recipient. 给小张打电话 — call Xiao Zhang; 给你说一个新闻 — tell you a news story. Very common HSK 1-2 construction.
我给你说一个新闻。
我给你打电话。
被 + Verb (passive)
被 marks a passive — something happens to the subject without their will. The whole episode's keyword is 被结婚 — 'married against your will.' Built from 被 (passive marker) + 结婚 (to marry).
她被结婚了。
她的身份证被人用了。
S + 是不是 + X?
是不是 = literally 'is-is-not.' Used to make a yes-or-no question. 'You're not a scammer, are you?' = 你是不是骗子？
你是不是小张？
你是不是想骗我钱？
V + 一下
一下 after a verb softens it and marks it as quick or tentative. 查一下 = 'take a quick look (it up)'; 想一下 = 'think about it for a moment.'
她在网上查了一下。
你想一下。
Proper Nouns
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