A Chinese podcast · Same story, 4 levels
不是毒杀，是疟疾：DNA 解开美第奇兄弟四百年谜案
Ancient DNA Rewrites Medici Poisoning Legend
About this story
A medium Chinese listening story: the Medici ruled Florence, and for 400 years a duke's sudden death fueled poisoning rumors, until Yale and Pisa scientists found malaria's parasite in the brothers' bones. HSK 4 Chinese listening practice.
This is an HSK 4 Chinese listening episode that runs about 1 minute. 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 城市、发现、最 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
A few centuries ago in Italy, the Medici family were the true masters of Florence.
They were both rich and powerful, controlling almost the entire city.
Yet this very illustrious family left behind a mystery more than four hundred years old.
In 1587, the family's grand duke Francesco died suddenly at 46, almost at the same time as his wife.
His death was so strange that suspicion quickly arose: he had been poisoned.
The one suspected was his own brother, Ferdinando, who was set on inheriting the throne.
As the story went, the weapon was the poison most common at the time: arsenic.
Another brother in the family, Giovanni, had also died very young.
These deaths kept the tale of "the poisoned Medici" alive for centuries.
Only recently did scientists from Yale and Pisa extract ancient DNA from the brothers' 400-year-old rib bones.
In the bones of both men, they found a parasite that causes malaria.
In other words, the real killer was most likely malaria, the disease.
Four centuries later, cold science gave an old rumor a brand-new answer.
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Try it without the transcript and notice what sounds clearer.
What vocabulary does this episode teach?
词汇掌控着整座城市 = controlling the whole city.
发现了一种寄生虫 = found a parasite.
当时最常用的毒药 = the most common poison of the time.
家里另一个哥哥 = another brother in the family.
也就是说 = in other words.
Medici 家族 = the Medici family.
大公爵弗朗切斯科 = Grand Duke Francesco.
当时最常用的毒药 = the most common poison then.
凶器是砒霜 = the weapon was arsenic.
引起疟疾的寄生虫 = the parasite that causes malaria.
* beyond level超纲词
What grammar patterns appear in this episode?
语法又有……，又有……
又有 A，又有 B = "have both A and B".
他们又有钱，又有权。
正是……
正是 X = "it is precisely X".
被怀疑的，正是他的弟弟费迪南多。
也就是说，……
也就是说 = "in other words / that is to say".
也就是说，真正的凶手，很可能是疟疾。
Proper nouns
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