A Chinese podcast · Same story, 4 levels
4:25
育碧背后的“隐形”兄弟：克劳德·吉尔莫，为什么值得被记住？
The 'Invisible' Brother Behind Ubisoft: Why Claude Guillemot Is Worth Remembering
HSK 3 Chinese listening practice. Ubisoft co-founder Claude Guillemot died in a Cessna crash near La Baule, France, aged 69. The story of five Brittany brothers, a global game empire (Assassin's Creed, Far Cry, Just Dance), the quiet operator behind the public CEO, and a company now in painful restructuring.
This is an HSK 3-4 Chinese listening episode that runs about 4 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 14 key vocabulary words such as 世界、习惯、消息 and walks through 7 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.
Read the complete story in Chinese. Reveal pinyin and English only when you need them.
Today, we'll talk about a man who has just passed away.
His name was Claude Guillemot.
This name
may be quite unfamiliar to you.
But the company he helped found
you have almost certainly heard of:
Ubisoft.
Ubisoft
is one of the world's biggest game companies.
Assassin's Creed,
Far Cry,
Just Dance —
these games, hits across the whole world,
all came from Ubisoft.
You could say
countless gamers around the world
have played their games.
Let's first talk about
where this company came from.
The story's starting point
was forty years ago.
In 1986,
in western France,
a place called Brittany,
five blood brothers
founded Ubisoft together.
Claude
was one of these five brothers.
At first,
what they did
was just a small business —
by mail order,
selling computer software.
No one imagined
that decades later,
this small business
would grow into
a game empire spanning the globe.
Among these five brothers,
the most famous
is actually the younger brother, Yves.
Yves
long served as Ubisoft's CEO,
the company's public 'face',
often appearing in public and giving interviews.
Claude, by contrast,
took the completely opposite path.
He kept an extremely low profile,
almost never showing his face in public.
He was more like the company's 'head steward',
quietly
running operations,
managing this vast family business's
every aspect.
He also ran
another of the family's companies,
one that makes gaming hardware.
The controller you play games with,
the steering wheel and such —
they're connected to him.
If
the younger brother Yves
was the star out on the stage,
then Claude
was the one
who, behind the scenes,
held up the entire stage.
So,
this tragedy —
how did it happen?
This Friday evening,
Claude
boarded
a small private plane.
It was
a twin-engine Cessna.
The plane flew to
France's west coast,
a seaside town called La Baule,
preparing to land.
But just as it was about to touch down,
the plane
plunged into a field,
and then burst into flames.
On board,
including him,
there were two people in all,
all killed.
The other
was a flight instructor.
Claude
was sixty-nine.
After the news broke,
the entire gaming world
fell into shock and grief.
And this event
has an especially poignant side.
In fact,
over the past two years,
Ubisoft's days
have not been easy.
The company is restructuring with difficulty,
slashing costs.
At just such
a precarious moment,
this founder who raised it with his own hands
departed, in such
a sudden way,
left it.
Speaking of this,
I want to say one more thing to you.
Our era
is used to lionizing those
who stand in the spotlight.
But Claude's story reminds us:
behind every
name we know well,
there are, in fact, others
who, all their lives,
stay where the light doesn't reach,
quietly
getting things
done, one by one.
Finally,
I want to leave you with two questions.
First,
in your own life,
is there such
a 'person behind the scenes' —
not often seen by you,
yet always
holding something up for you?
Second,
when a person
spends a lifetime
building a 'city',
and this city
is, at this moment, swaying and unsteady,
what does his departure
leave
to us?
These two questions
have no standard answer.
But they're worth our
thinking about slowly.
Try it without the transcript and notice what sounds clearer.
HSK 1-3. world.
HSK 1-3. habit; to be used to.
HSK 1-3. news; message.
HSK 1-3. to accept.
HSK 1-3. at the end; finally.
HSK 1-3. company.
HSK 1-3. problem / question.
他一手参与创立的公司 = the company he helped found.
这个名字，你可能很陌生 = this name may be quite unfamiliar to you.
我们先说说，这家公司的来历 = let's first talk about where this company came from.
横跨全球的游戏帝国 = a game empire spanning the globe.
是公司对外的“门面” = the company's public face — i.e. brother Yves.
几乎从不抛头露面 = almost never appears in public — describing the low-key Claude.
默默地，管着运营 = quietly running operations.
* beyond level超纲词
一手 + Verb (single-handedly)
Stresses doing something largely by oneself.
他一手参与创立的公司。
这位一手把它带大的创始人。
谁也没想到 ... (no one expected that...)
Sets up a surprising outcome.
谁也没想到，几十年后，这门小生意，会长成一个，横跨全球的游戏帝国。
走的是 ... 的路 (to take the ... path)
Describes a life or strategy choice metaphorically.
而克劳德，走的是完全相反的路。
更像是 ... (is more like...)
Offers a fitting comparison.
他更像是公司的“大管家”。
如果说 X，那 Y (if you say X, then Y)
Builds a parallel contrast.
如果说，弟弟伊夫，是站在台前的明星，那克劳德，就是那个，在幕后，把整个舞台撑起来的人。
却以 ... 的方式 (yet in a ... way)
Marks an unexpected manner, often poignant.
却以这样一种，突然的方式，离开了。
这两个问题，没有标准答案。但是值得 ... 慢慢去想
The channel's reflective close.
这两个问题，没有标准答案。但是值得我们，慢慢去想。
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