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 Will Pay Someone $10,000 a Month to Eat Ice Cream — and It Started on His Father's Dairy Farm
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 2 Chinese listening practice.
This is an HSK 2 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 公司、好吃、记得 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
This week, everyone has been talking about the same job.
The job is: eating ice cream.
Ten thousand dollars a month.
Do it for three months and that is thirty thousand dollars in total.
It sounds like a joke, but it is real.
The person offering the job is an American singer.
He is very famous; people all over the world listen to his music.
He also has an ice cream brand.
And now he is looking for someone, called an "International Ice Cream Taster".
So what does this person actually do?
First, they eat ice cream — a lot of it.
Second, they travel to other countries.
They fly from one country to the next.
They eat the ice cream there, and see what people there like.
Third, they write things online and post photographs.
Fourth, they think up new flavours.
When they think of a good one, they tell the company.
Who can go?
The company says: more or less anybody.
You have to speak English.
You have to have a passport, because you will be leaving the country.
And you have to be free for those three months.
Beyond that, there are no other requirements.
A student can apply.
A chef can apply.
Whatever your job is, you can apply.
So a very large number of people have signed up.
Some people say: this is really an advertisement.
And there is something in that.
The company spends thirty thousand dollars, and millions of people learn the brand's name.
If you were buying advertising, thirty thousand dollars is very little money.
So the company is being clever.
But this is not only an advertisement.
Listen to what happened when this singer was a child.
His father grew up on a farm.
There were cows on the farm, and cows give people milk.
His father used that milk and made ice cream himself.
Back then there was not much money in the house.
But there was ice cream.
Later, the singer had a son.
When his son finished school, he would take him out to buy ice cream.
The two of them would sit and eat it together.
The son grew up, and he still remembers those days.
Now father and son run the brand together.
Their flavours have wonderful names.
One of them is named after the place he lived as a child.
So this job is funny, but behind it there is a family's story.
Ice cream a father made became a son's memory.
And when that son grew up, he made it for his own son in turn.
Think about it: is there something from when you were small whose taste you can still remember?
Listen again
Try it without the transcript and notice what sounds clearer.
What vocabulary does this episode teach?
词汇HSK 2. Who is hiring, and who benefits: 所以公司很聪明。
HSK 2. The job description in a word.
HSK 2. The turn of the episode: 儿子长大了，还记得这些日子。
HSK 2. 农场里有牛，牛给人牛奶 — where it all begins.
HSK 2. The obvious property of the product, and of the memory.
HSK 1. Part of the point about who may apply: 你是学生，可以。
The subject of the episode from first line to last.
Part of the job: 他要想新的口味。
The everyday word for a brand, as against the more formal 品牌.
HSK 3. One of only three requirements: 你要有护照，因为你要出国。
HSK 3. The honest reading of the whole thing: 这其实是一个广告。
What a very large number of people did: 很多很多人都去报名了。
* beyond level超纲词
What grammar patterns appear in this episode?
语法第一……第二……第三……第四……
Counting off duties out loud. A host uses this so a listener can follow a list they cannot see written down.
第一，他要吃冰淇淋。
第二，他要去别的国家。
第四，他要想新的口味。
虽然……，可是……
Although X, nevertheless Y. Chinese keeps both halves where English usually drops one.
所以这个工作虽然好笑，可是后面有一个家的故事。
除了……，没有别的……
Apart from these, there is nothing else. Compact way to say a list is complete.
除了这些，没有别的要求。
Proper Nouns
专有名词Sources
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