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 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 12 key vocabulary words such as 孩子、奇怪、小时 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?
Lots of eleven-year-olds are studying at school every day.
But in Britain, one eleven-year-old girl opened a shop.
Her name is Alex, and now she's sixteen.
Her shop is in a small town in northern England called Darlington.
The shop sells small toys that you can hold in your hand and play with.
For example, a soft little ball that you can keep squeezing in your hand when you're not happy.
When Alex was eleven, lots of people had to stay at home and couldn't go out.
So she started selling these little toys online.
Now most of the shop's sales happen on TikTok.
On TikTok, you can watch videos and also buy things directly.
Now fourteen people work at the shop, and its little toys are sold all over the world.
Half a million people follow the shop on TikTok.
The surprising thing is that these people don't just buy online, they're also happy to come to the shop.
On Saturdays there's often a long queue outside the shop.
Some people queue for four hours.
Some come from London, some from Edinburgh, both a long way away.
Now the person running the shop every day is Alex's mother, Brunskill.
She said: lots of people come to Darlington because of our shop.
Alex is still at school, and she's studying accountancy.
But she also works in the shop every day.
She comes up with new toys, and she answers customers' questions.
In Britain, about three hundred thousand small businesses sell on TikTok.
Lots of people like watching sellers' livestreams on TikTok.
One butcher's shop says sixty percent of its customers on TikTok are women in their forties and fifties.
But Alex and her mother see things differently.
Brunskill said: I want to keep the shop as small as possible.
Alex thinks: I want to open shops all over the world.
Do you think this shop should stay small, or get bigger?
Listen again
Try it without the transcript and notice what sounds clearer.
What vocabulary does this episode teach?
词汇HSK 2. 很多十一岁的孩子.
HSK 2. 奇怪的是 = the strange thing is.
HSK 2. 有的人要排四个小时.
HSK 2. 可以拿在手里玩.
HSK 2. 都很远.
HSK 1. 每天都在学校学习.
玩 (play) + 具 (tool).
你可以看视频，也可以直接买东西.
有五十万人关注这家商店.
排队 = to queue. 排很长的队.
她在学会计.
直 (direct) + 播 (broadcast).
* beyond level超纲词
What grammar patterns appear in this episode?
语法不但……，还……
Not only…, but also…
奇怪的是，这些人不但在网上买，还愿意来商店买。
越……越好
The more…, the better.
布伦斯基尔说：我想让商店越小越好。
有的……，有的……
Some…, others…
有的人从伦敦来，有的人从爱丁堡来，都很远。
Proper Nouns
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