A Chinese podcast · Same story, 4 levels
没有一只帝王蝶能飞完整趟迁徙：这段路要四代接力才能走完
No Monarch Butterfly Ever Finishes Its Own Migration — the Trip Takes Four Generations
About this story
A monarch butterfly weighs about a gram, yet monarchs cross North America every year — and no single butterfly finishes the trip. Mothers lay eggs on poisonous milkweed and die; it takes three or four generations to fly nearly 5,000 km from Mexico to Canada. Then a special autumn generation that doesn't breed lives seven to nine months and flies 4,000 km back to a Mexico it has never seen, navigating by the sun. The milkweed's poison, stored in their bodies, is why birds learn to leave them alone. Chinese listening practice at four levels. HSK 2 Chinese listening practice.
This is an HSK 2 Chinese listening episode that runs about 3 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 颜色、特别、天气 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
Do you like butterflies?
Today we're talking about a small butterfly called the monarch.
A monarch weighs only about one gram — lighter than a sheet of paper.
But every year, monarchs fly a very, very long way — nearly five thousand kilometers.
Can one little butterfly fly all five thousand kilometers?
No.
No single monarch can fly the whole route by itself.
So how do the five thousand kilometers get flown?
Let's start with winter.
In winter, millions of monarchs are in Mexico, crowded together, hanging from big trees.
When spring comes and the weather warms up, the monarchs start flying north.
In good weather, a monarch can fly more than a hundred kilometers a day.
After flying part of the way, the butterfly mother has to find a certain plant.
Under its leaves she lays hundreds of tiny eggs, and then she dies.
A few days later, little caterpillars come out of the eggs.
The caterpillars eat only this plant, and as they eat, they grow.
About a month later, the caterpillars turn into new butterflies.
The new butterflies also fly north, lay eggs, and die.
Mother, daughter, granddaughter — generation after generation, they keep flying on.
After three or four generations, the monarchs finally reach the northern US and Canada.
When autumn arrives and it gets cold, the last generation of monarchs is born.
This generation is special.
They don't lay eggs; they just fly.
Other monarchs die after a month or so.
This generation can live seven to nine months.
They fly south for two months, four thousand kilometers, back to Mexico.
They've never been to Mexico, yet they know the way.
Scientists say they navigate by the sun, so they don't get lost.
Once in Mexico, they hang from the big trees again and spend the winter together.
The next spring, they fly north again, and a new year's journey begins.
So one monarch can't finish the route, but generation after generation of monarchs finishes it.
There's something else interesting.
The plant the caterpillars eat is poisonous.
When the caterpillars eat it, they become poisonous too.
Monarchs are orange and black, and very pretty.
But those colors seem to say: don't eat me.
A university lecturer in China says that once a certain kind of bird has eaten a monarch, it almost never eats butterflies with those colors again.
Ninety-seven times out of a hundred, it leaves them alone.
If you were a monarch and knew you couldn't finish the journey, would you still fly?
Listen again
Try it without the transcript and notice what sounds clearer.
What vocabulary does this episode teach?
词汇HSK 2. 可是这个颜色，好像在说：别吃我.
HSK 2. 这一代很特别 — the long-lived autumn generation.
HSK 1. 天气好的时候，一只帝王蝶一天能飞一百多公里.
HSK 1. 妈妈、女儿、女儿的女儿，一代一代往前飞.
HSK 2. 帝王蝶开始往北边飞.
HSK 1. 她们从来没有去过墨西哥，可是知道怎么走.
一只小小的蝴蝶.
飞完 / 飞不完 — whether the trip can be finished.
一代一代 / 三四代以后 — the relay.
这一代帝王蝶，能活七到九个月.
HSK 3. 她们会看太阳，所以不会走错.
小虫子吃了草，身体里也有了毒.
* beyond level超纲词
What grammar patterns appear in this episode?
语法比……还 + adjective
Even more… than — here, lighter than a sheet of paper.
一只帝王蝶，只有一克重，比一张纸还轻。
从……说起
Start the story from…
我们从冬天说起。
好像在说……
Seems to be saying — gives an object a voice.
可是这个颜色，好像在说：别吃我。
Proper Nouns
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