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 3 Chinese listening practice.
This is an HSK 3-4 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 着急、赶紧、一辈子 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.
Read at your level
原文Read the complete story in Chinese. Reveal pinyin and English only when you need them.
English transcript reference
This happened in Portland, in America, on the twelfth of August.
Portland’s transit company is called TriMet, and what follows is footage TriMet filmed itself.
The main characters are two goats.
Not the big farm kind — a very small kind, only knee-high on a person, that plenty of people keep as pets.
That day, somehow, these two goats got loose.
They were walking slowly along the side of the road, in no hurry at all.
Someone saw them, thought it was not quite right, and called the police.
The caller said: there are two goats on the road with nobody with them.
But before the police arrived, the goats had already walked to a TriMet bus stop themselves.
They were not standing at the roadside waiting — they had walked right into the stop.
At that point, a bus came.
The doors opened and people could board.
The people waiting started to get on.
The two goats went up with them.
The first goat climbed the step, hooves landing on the floor of the bus.
The second one followed behind and got on too.
Then the doors closed.
Now there were two goats on this city bus.
Nobody stopped them, nobody shouted.
The goats simply stood there, on the bus.
There were of course people on board.
Some of them spotted it at once, were astonished, and quickly pulled out their phones to film.
Some of them kept their heads down over their phones and never once knew that a goat was standing beside them.
That is the funniest part of the whole thing.
Later, the driver noticed too.
The driver said: this, no.
He and several people on the bus together asked the two goats off.
The two goats got off, not annoyed, not hurried, and walked slowly away.
They headed off toward a shopping centre next door.
After that, TriMet’s cameras could no longer see them.
To this day nobody knows where they ended up.
So how did everyone find out?
TriMet said so themselves.
That part is interesting too: the company put the clip out itself.
After the transit company got the report, they checked the stop’s cameras, saw this stretch of footage, and put the video online.
A lot of people watched it and laughed.
But once you have finished laughing, there is something here worth thinking about.
Of the people on that bus that day, some saw something they will see once in a lifetime.
The others spent the ride looking down at a phone, and for them nothing happened at all.
They were on the same bus, on the same stretch of road, in the same span of time.
Think about it: what happened near you today that you never looked up to see?
Listen again
Try it without the transcript and notice what sounds clearer.
What vocabulary does this episode teach?
词汇一点也不着急 = in no hurry at all.
赶紧拿出手机拍 = quickly pulled out their phones to film.
一辈子只会看到一次 = something you see once in a lifetime.
低着头看自己的手机 = kept their heads down over their phones.
很多人当宠物养 = plenty of people keep them as pets.
蹄子踩在车里的地上 = hooves landing on the floor of the bus.
第一只羊先上了台阶 = the first goat climbed the step.
TriMet 的摄像头 = TriMet’s cameras.
后来，司机也发现了 = later the driver noticed too.
就报了警 = and called the police.
司机说：这个，不行 = the driver said: this, no.
把视频放到了网上 = put the video online.
What grammar patterns appear in this episode?
语法一点也不……
"not the least bit X". Often funnier than a stronger word.
它们在路边慢慢走，一点也不着急。
不是……，是……
Corrects the picture the listener has just formed.
它们不是站在路边等，是真的走进了站台。
值得 + verb
"worth doing X". Flags the point of the story.
有一个地方值得想一想。
Proper Nouns
专有名词Sources
来源Free account
Keep learning from this story
Create a free account to keep saved words and your preferred level together.
- Keep words with their story context
- Remember your preferred level
- Build your vocabulary over time