A Chinese podcast · Same story, 4 levels
十一岁开店、五十万粉丝：英国小城的解压玩具店靠抖音国际版火了
Opened at 11, Half a Million Fans: How TikTok Shop Turned a Small-Town British Fidget-Toy Shop Into a Hit
About this story
Alex opened Funky Fidgets in Darlington, northern England, at 11 during the pandemic. At 16 she has 14 staff, half a million TikTok followers and four-hour Saturday queues — part of a TikTok Shop boom among Britain's small businesses. Her mum wants to stay small; Alex wants shops all over the world. Chinese listening practice at four levels. HSK 1 Chinese listening practice.
This is an HSK 1 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 12 key vocabulary words such as 学校、学习、商店 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
What were you doing when you were eleven?
When I was eleven, I was studying at school.
Lots of eleven-year-olds are studying at school.
But one eleven-year-old girl opened a shop.
Now she's sixteen.
Her shop is big, and fourteen people work there.
The shop has lots of little things.
You can hold these little things in your hand and play with them.
When you're not happy, you can hold one in your hand and play with it for a while.
This girl lives in Britain.
She isn't in a big city, she's in a small town.
When she was eleven, lots of people had to stay at home and couldn't go to the shops.
So she sold these little things online.
Now she sells a lot of her things on TikTok.
On TikTok, you can watch videos, and you can also buy things.
Lots of people like watching her shop on TikTok.
Five hundred thousand people like her shop.
These people buy online, and they also go to her shop to buy things.
On Saturdays, lots of people wait outside the shop.
Some people have to wait four hours.
Some people come from big cities far away.
The girl's mum works in the shop too.
She said: lots of people come to our little town because of this shop.
The girl is still studying now.
She also works in the shop: she thinks up new little things and talks to the customers.
Her mum thinks: a smaller shop is good.
But the girl thinks: I want to open shops in lots of countries.
In Britain, three hundred thousand small shops sell things on TikTok.
If you opened a shop at eleven, what would you want to sell?
Listen again
Try it without the transcript and notice what sounds clearer.
What vocabulary does this episode teach?
词汇HSK 1. 我十一岁的时候，在学校学习.
HSK 1. 现在，女孩子还在学习.
HSK 1. 一个十一岁的女孩子，开了一个商店.
HSK 1. 有十四个人在那里工作.
HSK 1. 现在，她十六岁了.
HSK 1. 星期六 = Saturday.
女孩子 = girl.
可以拿在手里玩.
拿在手里 = hold in your hand.
网 (net) + 上 (on). 她就在网上卖这些小东西.
在抖音上，你可以看视频.
有的人要等四个小时.
* beyond level超纲词
What grammar patterns appear in this episode?
语法……的时候
When… — sets the time of the sentence.
你十一岁的时候，在做什么？
要 + verb + time
Has to… for (a length of time).
有的人要等四个小时。
……，是因为……
…is because of… — gives the reason.
她说：很多人来我们这个小城，是因为这个商店。
Proper Nouns
专有名词Free account
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