A Chinese podcast · Same story, 4 levels
一个月一万美元，请你吃冰淇淋：这个工作的后面，是一个爸爸和一个儿子
Snoop Dogg Offers $10K/Month Ice Cream Taster Job
About this story
Snoop Dogg's ice cream brand Dr. Bombay is hiring an International Ice Cream Taster — three months, $30,000, open worldwide. It is a marketing stunt, and it is also built on a real family story: his father made ice cream by hand on a Mississippi dairy farm. Chinese listening practice at four levels. HSK 1 Chinese listening practice.
This is an HSK 1 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 工作、吃、钱 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
Today we are talking about a job.
To do this job, you have to eat ice cream.
What is ice cream?
It is something very cold, very sweet, very good to eat.
When the weather is hot, that is when you want ice cream.
Small people love it, and big people love it too.
This job is being offered by someone very famous.
He is in America.
A great many people know who he is.
He makes ice cream as well.
And now he wants one person.
What does that person do?
Eat ice cream.
He will pay that person ten thousand dollars a month.
Ten thousand dollars is a great deal of money.
Three months of it is thirty thousand dollars.
You are going to think: is this real?
It is real.
What does this person have to do?
They have to eat ice cream.
They also have to go to many countries.
They get on a plane, go to this country and that country.
And in every country, they eat the ice cream there.
After eating it they say: this one is good, that one is not so good.
They also have to think up new ice creams.
Once they have thought of one, they tell the company.
Who can do this job?
They say: anybody can.
If you can speak, you can.
If you can get on a plane, you can.
If you are a student, you can too.
So a lot of people want this job.
There is a reason this man makes ice cream.
Listen.
His father used to be on a farm.
There were cows on the farm.
Cows give us milk.
And his father used that milk to make ice cream.
His father did not buy ice cream; his father made it.
Back then they did not have much money.
But they had ice cream.
Later, this famous man had a son of his own.
The son went off to school.
When the son came back, father and son went for ice cream together.
The son grew up, and he still loves ice cream too.
Now father and son make ice cream together.
The ice cream they make is this company's.
So this job is a special one.
When a person is small, eating ice cream makes them happy.
When he grew up, he wanted to give you that same happiness.
Think about it: when you were small, what tasted best to you?
Listen again
Try it without the transcript and notice what sounds clearer.
What vocabulary does this episode teach?
词汇HSK 1. The whole episode is about one strange job: 做这个工作，你要吃冰淇淋。
HSK 1. What the job consists of, repeated all the way through.
HSK 1. 一万美元，是很多很多钱 — the number that makes it a story.
HSK 1. The episode turns on two fathers: his, and him.
HSK 1. 爸爸和儿子一起做冰淇淋 — the second half of the story.
HSK 1. How the job works: 他坐飞机，去这个国家，也去那个国家。
Taught in the opening with floor words only: 是很冷的东西，很甜，很好吃。
HSK 2. The taster's entire job in one word: 这个好吃，那个不太好吃。
Who is offering the job: 一个很有名的人。
The unit the whole story hangs on: 一个月一万美元。
Where the family story starts: 他的爸爸，以前在一个农场。
HSK 2. The link between the farm and the ice cream: 牛给我们牛奶。
* beyond level超纲词
What grammar patterns appear in this episode?
语法A，就 B
B follows directly from A. This episode uses it to chain each small step of the story together.
天气很热的时候，你就想吃冰淇淋。
他吃了，就说：这个好吃。
他的爸爸，就用牛奶做冰淇淋。
……，也……
Adds a second thing of the same kind. Repeating 也 is how the episode builds up who can apply without new vocabulary.
小的人喜欢吃，大的人也喜欢吃。
他也要去很多国家。
你是学生，也可以。
谁都可以
Anybody at all. 谁 with 都 means "everyone / anyone", not a question — a very common pattern that surprises learners.
他们说：谁都可以。
Proper nouns
专有名词Sources
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