A Chinese podcast · Same story, 4 levels
好莱坞影星马修·麦康纳在梵蒂冈会见首位美国籍教皇
Hollywood Star Matthew McConaughey Meets the First American-Born Pope at the Vatican.
About this story
Hollywood Star Matthew McConaughey Meets the First American-Born Pope at the Vatican. HSK 3 Chinese listening practice.
This is an HSK 3-4 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 10 key vocabulary words such as 意外、普通、公开 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
Last Wednesday a photo came out of the Vatican that caught a fair number of Americans off guard.
In it, a Hollywood actor is shaking hands with the Pope.
The actor is Matthew McConaughey.
An Oscar winner, a string of big films behind him — in America, the kind of face everybody recognises in the street.
The Pope's side is not ordinary either.
His name is Leo XIV, and he is the first American-born Pope in the history of the Catholic Church.
In more than a thousand years of Catholicism, this seat had never once gone to an American.
So an American actor going to meet an American Pope is news in itself.
The setting of the meeting was in fact a public one.
Every Wednesday the Pope holds an audience, and tens of thousands of people come in from all over.
The McConagheys were in that crowd; afterwards they stepped forward, said a few words and shook hands.
It did not take long, but the photo travelled.
Why was he there at all?
One reason is that he has spent these last years talking openly about faith.
Last year he put out a book, all of it poems he wrote himself, and its subject is people and belief.
The other reason is a lot more practical: he happens to be in Italy shooting a new film, it is not far from the Vatican, and he stopped by.
One American actor, one American Pope, shaking hands in the smallest country in the world.
Think about it: given one chance to meet anyone at all, who would you meet?
Listen again
Try it without the transcript and notice what sounds clearer.
What vocabulary does this episode teach?
词汇让不少美国人有点意外 = caught a fair number of Americans off guard.
教皇这边，也不普通 = the Pope’s side is not ordinary either.
见面的场合，其实是公开的 = the setting was in fact a public one.
一个原因是…… 另一个原因…… — the standard way to lay out two reasons.
给你一次机会 = give you one chance.
天主教历史上第一位 = the first in the history of Catholicism.
The head of the Catholic Church.
握 (to grip) + 手 (hand). The whole photo is this one action.
他一直在谈信仰 = he has kept talking about faith.
顺路就去了 = he stopped by since he was passing anyway.
* beyond level超纲词
What grammar patterns appear in this episode?
语法……本身就是……
"… is itself …" — the thing needs no further justification.
一个美国演员去见一个美国教皇，本身就是新闻。
一直没……过
"has never once …" up to now. 过 marks past experience, 没 negates it.
这个位子，一直没轮到过美国人。
A 得多
"much more A" — a comparison without naming what it is compared to.
另一个原因，现实得多。
Proper Nouns
专有名词Sources
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