A Chinese podcast · Same story, 4 levels
半夜四点房子着火，他开走了来救他的消防车，还碾过了正在给他家浇水的水带。
Man Steals Fire Truck at His Own House Fire
About this story
Man Steals Fire Truck at His Own House Fire. HSK 1 Chinese listening practice.
This is an HSK 1 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 6 key vocabulary words such as 水、走、时候 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
In America there is a man, thirty years old.
In the middle of the night, his house had a fire.
Four in the morning. The fire was big — very, very big.
The fire trucks came.
The fire trucks came to save his house.
There were many people on the trucks.
They got off; they were going to fight the fire.
Fighting fire needs water, and the water is in hoses.
There were many hoses there, and inside the hoses was water.
The hoses lay there, and the water was inside them.
The water went to fight the fire; the water went to save his house.
What did this man do?
This man got into a fire truck.
He got into one fire truck, and he drove it away.
Four in the morning, and he drove a fire truck away.
As he drove, his truck hit a second fire truck.
That second fire truck had also come to fight the fire.
There were people on that second truck too.
As he drove, his truck also went over those hoses.
There was water in those hoses, and that water was saving his house.
The people from the truck were standing there, and they had to move.
Three people. Very bad.
Three people were standing there, and his truck was there too.
This man drove on, and drove into someone else’s house.
The truck was wrecked.
The fire truck was wrecked, there at that other person’s house.
He got out, and he went to that person’s door.
He wanted to take the things at the door.
The police came, and the police arrested him.
The police arrested him, and he could not leave.
At his house, the fire was still big — very, very big.
The truck that came to save him, he drove away.
The water that was saving his house, he did not want either.
Think about it:
The thing that came to save you — can you drive it away?
Listen again
Try it without the transcript and notice what sounds clearer.
What vocabulary does this episode teach?
词汇救火要水 — fighting a fire needs water. The word the whole story turns on.
他不能走 — he cannot leave.
他开的时候 — while he was driving. Always used with 的.
他要拿门口的东西 — he wanted to take the things at the door.
他的房子有火 — his house had a fire.
来救他的房子 — came to save his house. 救火 is "to fight a fire".
* beyond level超纲词
What grammar patterns appear in this episode?
语法来 + verb
"Comes in order to do" — 来 before a verb marks purpose.
消防车来了，来救他的房子。 — The fire trucks came, came to save his house.
……的时候
While / when. The clause comes first, 的时候 closes it.
他开的时候，他的车打了第二辆消防车。 — While he was driving, his truck hit a second fire truck.
也 + verb
"Also" — always before the verb.
第二辆车上，也有人。 — There were people on the second truck too.
救他房子的水，他也不要了。 — He did not want the water saving his house either.
Proper nouns
专有名词Sources
来源Free account
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