A Chinese podcast · Same story, 4 levels
两只侏儒山羊在波特兰上了公交车。车上有人全程低头看手机，什么都没看见。
Two Pygmy Goats Boarded a Portland City Bus. Some Passengers Never Looked Up From Their Phones.
About this story
Two Pygmy Goats Boarded a Portland City Bus. Some Passengers Never Looked Up From Their Phones. HSK 2 Chinese listening practice.
This is an HSK 2 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 12 key vocabulary words such as 警察、当时、吃惊 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 Portland, in America, there were two little goats.
Two very small goats.
That day they were not at home; they were out walking.
Somebody saw them and called the police.
The police had not arrived yet, and the goats had already walked to a bus stop.
A bus came and the doors opened.
The people waiting started to get on, and the goats went up with them.
And so, two goats boarded a city bus.
The doors closed.
And there the two goats stood, on the bus.
The bus pulled away.
There were people on board at the time.
Some of them saw, and were astonished.
Some of them kept looking at their phones.
They did not know that two goats were standing right beside them.
Later, the driver saw them.
The driver said: this, no.
He and several people on the bus together asked the goats off.
The two goats got off and walked away slowly.
They headed off toward a shopping centre next door.
After that, the transit company’s cameras could no longer see them.
To this day, nobody knows where they went.
So how did everyone find out about this?
The transit company put the video online themselves.
A lot of people watched it and laughed.
The funniest part is that some people on that bus were looking at their phones the whole time and noticed nothing at all.
Think about it: what happened near you today that you did not see at all?
Listen again
Try it without the transcript and notice what sounds clearer.
What vocabulary does this episode teach?
词汇警察还没有来 = the police had not arrived yet.
车里当时是有人的 = there were people on board at the time.
有的人看见了，很吃惊 = some saw and were astonished.
自己旁边就站着两只羊 = two goats standing right beside them.
一直在看手机 = kept looking at their phones the whole time.
有人看见了，就报警了 = someone saw them and called the police.
两只羊上了公交车 = two goats boarded a city bus.
后来，司机看见了 = later, the driver saw them.
公交公司的摄像头 = the transit company’s cameras.
往旁边的商场去了 = headed toward a shopping centre.
把那段视频放到了网上 = put the video online.
羊也跟着往上走 = the goats went up with them.
What grammar patterns appear in this episode?
语法就这样，……
"and just like that…". Marks something absurd happening with no resistance.
就这样，两只羊上了公交车。
从头到尾
"from start to finish". Emphasises that nothing was noticed at any point.
从头到尾什么都没发现。
还没有……，就……
"before A had even happened, B already did".
警察还没有来，羊就走到了一个公交车站。
Proper Nouns
专有名词Sources
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