A Chinese podcast · Same story, 4 levels
魁北克的枫糖浆被兑了甘蔗糖，一半都不是枫的。农业部查过一次，说没问题。
Quebec Maple Syrup Was Cut With Cane Sugar. The Agriculture Ministry Tested It Once and Found Nothing.
About this story
Quebec Maple Syrup Was Cut With Cane Sugar. The Agriculture Ministry Tested It Once and Found Nothing. 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 6 key vocabulary words such as 贵、便宜、一样 and walks through 2 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
Canada has something a lot of people know about, called maple syrup.
Maple syrup comes out of maple trees.
When the weather is cold there is water inside the tree; you boil that water for many days, and you get maple syrup.
Forty buckets of water make one bucket of maple syrup.
So maple syrup is expensive.
Quebec makes the most maple syrup.
This year, something happened.
Some of the maple syrup sold in supermarkets is fake.
Not entirely fake — half fake.
Inside one can, half of it is cane sugar.
Cane sugar is cheap, maple syrup is expensive.
Put the cheap one in, it looks the same, and you still charge the expensive price.
What comes next is the most interesting part.
Last March, someone asked the government about it.
The government’s agriculture ministry went and checked, and said there was no problem.
This year, a television station went and checked too.
They bought five cans and sent them to a laboratory.
In all five cans, every one had cane sugar, at least half of each.
Five cans, and not one real one among them.
So it went like this:
An ordinary person noticed first, the government could not detect it, and the television station found it immediately.
The four big supermarket chains that sold this syrup are now being sued as well.
The reason: you sold it for years — did you not know?
The case has not been decided yet.
Think about it:
The things you buy — how do you know what is inside them?
Listen again
Try it without the transcript and notice what sounds clearer.
What vocabulary does this episode teach?
词汇Maple syrup is 贵 because thirty-nine buckets are boiled away.
The opposite of 贵. Cane sugar is 便宜; that is the whole motive.
看上去一样 — it looks the same, and that is the problem.
枫 maple, 糖 sugar, 浆 thick liquid.
The cheap sugar that was mixed in.
Not just boiling — boiling for hours until most of it is gone.
* beyond level超纲词
What grammar patterns appear in this episode?
语法Marks that something takes more than you would expect.
四十桶水，才熬出一桶枫糖浆。 — Forty buckets make only one bucket of syrup.
把 + object + verb
The 把 construction fronts the object to focus on what is done to it.
把便宜的放进去 — put the cheap one in
把水熬很多天 — boil the water for many days
Proper Nouns
专有名词Sources
来源Free account
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