A Chinese podcast · Same story, 4 levels
"被结婚"13 年：身份证号被冒用之后
Married Against Her Will for 13 Years: Identity Fraud and the Bureaucratic Maze
About this story
Married Against Her Will for 13 Years: Identity Fraud and the Bureaucratic Maze. HSK 2 Chinese listening practice.
This is an HSK 2 Chinese listening episode that runs about 5 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 新闻、问题、觉得 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 we're talking about a Chinese news story.
The story is strange.
And it's real.
The person in the story —
let's call her Xiao Zhang.
Xiao Zhang is a woman from Hebei.
Born in 1993.
33 years old this year.
Now working in Beijing.
One day in November 2025,
she got a phone call.
The voice on the line said:
"I'm with the Shaanxi police.
"In 2013 you married a man.
"You have a son.
"He's 12 this year.
Hearing this, Xiao Zhang
thought it was a scammer.
Because in 2013,
she was still in university in Beijing.
She was only 20 then.
She had never been to Shaanxi.
She hung up.
But afterwards,
she was still a little worried.
She looked it up online.
That phone number —
really was the Shaanxi police.
Then she went to the government website to check on herself.
The site said:
She was married.
Marriage date: October 30, 2013.
Xiao Zhang got a huge shock.
She really was "married."
And had a child.
But she didn't know it.
What was going on?
Here's what happened:
In Shaanxi there's a man called Xiao Liu.
Xiao Liu was working in Beijing in 2008.
At that time he met a woman.
That woman, he called "Xiao Ting."
Xiao Liu and "Xiao Ting" got married in 2013.
But this "Xiao Ting"
was not a real person.
She was someone who used another person's name and ID number.
The ID number she used
was Xiao Zhang's.
Why use Xiao Zhang's?
Because "Xiao Ting" is Xiao Zhang's former name.
Xiao Zhang and the fake "Xiao Ting" were from the same village.
Their household registrations listed the same place.
That is to say:
the fake "Xiao Ting"
was probably trying to use Xiao Zhang's identity for things.
Two years after Xiao Liu and "Xiao Ting" married,
"Xiao Ting" left.
She said she was going home to see her parents.
After that she never came back.
13 years later,
Xiao Liu wanted to find her.
He went to the police to report her missing.
The police called the ID number —
and that's how they ended up calling Xiao Zhang.
Xiao Zhang said:
"I'm not Xiao Ting.
"I don't know Xiao Liu.
"I've never been married.
Xiao Liu also said:
"My wife isn't this person.
But the marriage on the computer
is still there.
Xiao Zhang wants to cancel this "marriage."
She went to the civil affairs office.
The civil affairs office is the agency that handles marriages in China.
Civil affairs said:
"You weren't the person who registered.
"You can't cancel someone else's marriage.
"You need to go to the police and the courts first.
"They have to confirm what you're saying,
"then we can cancel it.
Xiao Zhang went to the police.
The Shaanxi police said:
This isn't our case.
You should report it in Hebei or Beijing.
The Hebei police said:
We can't handle this either.
You need to go to Shaanxi.
The Beijing police said:
We don't have anyone who handles this.
For half a year,
no one took Xiao Zhang's case.
Civil affairs pointed at the police.
The police pointed at the courts.
The courts pointed at civil affairs.
Everyone said:
"This isn't my problem.
"Go find someone else.
She worries:
later, if I want to get married,
what do I do?
I'm already "married."
If I marry another man,
isn't that against the law?
By May,
there was some good news.
The court said:
"We'll hear Xiao Zhang's case.
Maybe slowly there's hope now.
I read this news,
and I thought:
your ID card is your "self."
If someone uses your ID number
to do things you don't know about,
whose job is it to handle that?
Finally I'll ask you:
if it were you,
what would you do?
Would you just keep waiting?
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News. The opening framing — 'today we're talking about a Chinese news story.'
Question or problem (context decides). The whole episode hinges on a 问题: whose job is it to fix this?
To feel, to think (subjective). 她觉得这是骗子 — she thought it was a scammer. Distinct from 想 (more general).
To worry. After hanging up, she was 担心 — worried — and looked it up online.
To tell (someone something). Structure: 告诉 + person + content. Civil affairs 告诉 her: you can't cancel someone else's marriage.
To look for, to go and see (a person/office about something). She 找 civil affairs, 找 police, 找 court — the verb of running between bureaus.
National ID card. Compound: 身份 (identity) + 证 (certificate). The card and number stolen in this story.
To get married. The single act this whole story revolves around — one that, for Xiao Zhang, never actually happened.
The Chinese government office that registers marriages, divorces, deaths, and other civil status events.
To cancel, to take down (often a record). 把这个'婚姻'撤掉 — cancel this 'marriage.' Formal verb of administrative undoing.
To handle, to take charge of. The whole tragedy lives in 不归我管 — 'not my responsibility.' Every department uses it; nobody takes the case.
'Already married' — the formal marital-status term the government system uses. The system says she is 已婚; she has never been married.
* beyond level超纲词
What grammar patterns appear in this episode?
语法被 + Verb (passive marker)
被 marks an unwilling passive. The episode's central word, 被结婚, is literally 'be-married' — i.e., 'I got married without doing anything.' Once you understand 被, you understand the whole story.
她被结婚了。
她的身份证号被用了。
也就是说 + clause
Used to restate something in plainer terms. The episode uses it whenever a complicated detail needs unpacking.
也就是说，那个假'张婷'，可能是想用小张的身份做事。
X 看 Y，Y 看 Z (everyone passes the ball)
A vivid Chinese way to describe bureaucratic deflection. 民政局看警察。警察看法院。法院看民政局 — civil affairs looks at the police, the police look at the courts, the courts look at civil affairs. No one acts.
民政局看警察。警察看法院。法院看民政局。
如果是你, S 怎么办?
Empathetic conditional. The narrator's closing pivot — putting the listener into the protagonist's situation. Useful any time you want the audience to imagine themselves in a problem.
如果是你，你会怎么办？
如果是你，你会一直等吗？
Proper Nouns
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