A Chinese podcast · Same story, 4 levels
NASA 让卫星靠拍太空垃圾找到了自己。大家都嫌碎片危险，它成了天上唯一免费的路标。
A NASA Satellite Found Itself With No GPS by Photographing Space Junk. The Debris Everyone Calls a Hazard Became the Map.
About this story
A NASA Satellite Found Itself With No GPS by Photographing Space Junk. The Debris Everyone Calls a Hazard Became the Map. HSK 1 Chinese listening practice.
This is an HSK 1 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 6 key vocabulary words such as 东西、知道、哪 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
There are many satellites in the sky.
The satellites move around up there.
How does a satellite know where it is?
Down here, we can look at a phone.
A satellite is up in the sky. The sky is far away, and there is no phone.
So how does it know where it is?
NASA made something new.
NASA let the satellite look at other things.
On the satellite, there is a camera.
What does the camera look at?
The camera looks at other satellites.
There is also a lot of rubbish up there.
Old satellites, broken things — they are all up in the sky.
The camera looks at that rubbish too.
On the satellite, there is a list.
On the list there are a lot of names.
The camera sees one thing, and the satellite checks that list.
When it has seen a lot, the satellite knows where it is.
In three days, the NASA satellite looked at more than two hundred things.
Everyone says the rubbish up there is bad.
But now, the rubbish can help a satellite.
Think about it:
If nobody tells you where you are, how do you know?
Listen again
Try it without the transcript and notice what sounds clearer.
What vocabulary does this episode teach?
词汇相机看到一个东西 — the camera sees an object.
卫星怎么知道自己在哪里？ — How does a satellite know where it is?
哪里 means "where". The question the whole episode asks.
那它怎么知道？ — So how does it know?
Literally "guard star" — 卫 to guard, 星 star.
卫星上，有相机 — there is a camera on the satellite.
* beyond level超纲词
What grammar patterns appear in this episode?
语法怎么 + verb
How does one do it? 怎么 sits before the verb.
卫星怎么知道自己在哪里？ — How does a satellite know where it is?
……就……
Then / immediately. Links a trigger to what follows.
相机看到一个东西，卫星就看那张表。 — The camera sees a thing, and the satellite checks the list.
可是
"But" — a plainer, more spoken alternative to 但是.
可是现在，垃圾可以帮卫星。 — But now, the rubbish can help a satellite.
Proper Nouns
专有名词Sources
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