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Two Pygmy Goats Boarded a Portland City Bus. Some Passengers Never Looked Up From Their Phones. — episode cover art
3:04

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 5-6 Chinese listening practice.

This is an HSK 5-6 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 13 key vocabulary words such as 受伤、耽误、犹豫 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.

说清楚本身
八月十二美国波特上了一趟分钟以后下去
没有受伤没有东西甚至没有耽误多少时间
可是视频后来传遍整个网络而且确实值得一讲
侏儒山羊个子很小站起来大概成年人膝盖美国一种常见宠物
那天它们不知道哪里走失
它们没有也没有就在路边一步一步
有人看见觉得不对打电话路上身边没有
可是警察赶过去已经不在原地
它们自己走到一个站台
时候打开站台开始上车
站台开始往上走
跟着往上走
一只踏上台阶蹄子落在车厢地板
第二只跟后面一步也没有犹豫去了
然后上了
一刻上有没有乘客
车厢当然是有人
一部分几乎立刻发现先是愣住然后赶紧掏出手机开始
还有一部分从头低着头自己手机
上来站在他们身边下去
整个过程他们一眼都没有看到
才是视频真正好笑地方
后来司机发现不行
几个乘客一起下了
下车以后没有生气也没有着急慢慢旁边一个商场方向走去
往后公司摄像
今天为止仍然没有知道它们最后去了哪里不知道它们谁家
那么怎么全世界知道
公司自己出来
他们接到报警消息以后站台看到一段画面然后视频到了自己社交
一家公司主动自己混进画面出来本身有意思
但是笑过之后一个细节留得
那天那辆车目击一件他们辈子大概遇到一次
完整错过
的是一辆车的是一段路的是一段时间
差别在于一件小事那几分钟没有一次
你想一想今天身边什么事情因为一直低着头完全没有看见
English transcript reference

First, let us be clear about how small this story is.

On the twelfth of August, in Portland, Oregon, two goats boarded a city bus and were escorted off a few minutes later.

Nobody was hurt, nothing was broken, and barely any time was lost.

And yet the video went round the entire internet afterwards, and it really is worth telling.

The two goats were pygmy goats — very small, standing about knee-high on an adult, and a common pet in America.

That day, somehow, they had got loose.

They were not running and not panicking; they were simply walking along the roadside, one step at a time.

Someone saw them, thought something was off, and called the police, saying there were two goats on the road with nobody with them.

But by the time the police got there, the goats were no longer where they had been.

They had walked to a bus stop by themselves.

At that moment a bus arrived, the doors opened, and the people at the stop began to board.

The people waiting on the platform started up the steps.

The two goats went up with them.

The first stepped onto the stair, hooves landing on the floor of the bus.

The second followed right behind, without hesitating for a single step, and got on too.

Then the doors closed.

From that moment, this bus was carrying two passengers who had not paid a fare.

There were, of course, people in the bus.

Some noticed almost immediately — first frozen, then reaching for their phones to film.

Others kept their heads down over their own phones the entire time.

The doors opened, the goats came aboard, stood beside them, and were escorted off again.

They did not see a second of it.

That is the genuinely funny part of this video.

Later the driver noticed as well, and said no.

He and several passengers together saw the two goats off the bus.

Once off, the goats were neither annoyed nor in any rush, and ambled off toward a shopping centre nearby.

After that, the transit company’s cameras lost them.

To this day nobody knows where they finally went, or whose they were.

So how did the whole world come to hear about this?

The transit company put it out themselves.

After they received the report, they pulled the platform camera footage, found this stretch of it, and posted the video to their own social account.

A transit company voluntarily publishing footage of two goats getting aboard one of its buses is itself rather good.

But once the laughing stops, there is one detail worth keeping.

On that bus that day, some people witnessed something they will probably encounter once in their lives.

Others missed it completely.

The two groups were on the same bus, along the same stretch of road, through the same span of time.

The only difference came down to one small thing: in those few minutes, whether or not they looked up once.

Think about it: what happened near you today that you missed entirely, because your head was down?

Listen again

Try it without the transcript and notice what sounds clearer.

What vocabulary does this episode teach?

词汇
shòushāngto be injured

没有人受伤 = nobody was hurt.

dānwuto delay

没有耽误多少时间 = barely any time was lost.

yóuyùto hesitate

一步也没有犹豫 = without hesitating for a single step.

lèngzhùto be stunned

先是愣住 = first frozen.

chéngkèpassenger

两名没有买票的乘客 = two passengers who had not paid a fare.

zhūrúpygmy, dwarf

这两只羊是侏儒山羊 = the two goats were pygmy goats.

chēxiāngcarriage, cabin

蹄子落在车厢的地板上 = hooves landing on the floor of the bus.

zhàntáiplatform

它们自己,走到了一个公交站台 = they walked to a bus stop by themselves.

zǒushīto go missing

它们不知道从哪里走失了 = somehow they had got loose.

diàoqǔto retrieve, to pull

调取了站台的监控 = pulled the platform camera footage.

mùjīto witness

有的人目击了一件…的事 = some people witnessed something.

táitóuto raise the head

有没有抬一次头 = whether or not they looked up once.

tōngqíncommute

A commute — the ordinary ride this happened on.

What grammar patterns appear in this episode?

语法

从这一刻起

"from this moment on". Marks the exact instant a situation changes.

从这一刻起,这辆公交车上有两名没有买票的乘客。

既没有……也没有……

"neither A nor B". Two absences at once.

两只羊下车以后既没有生气也没有着急。

差别只在于……

"the only difference is…". Reduces a contrast to one variable.

差别只在于一件小事:那几分钟里,有没有抬一次头。

Proper Nouns

专有名词
波特兰BōtèlánPortland俄勒冈ÉlègāngOregon

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