A Chinese podcast · Same story, 4 levels
拉斯维加斯111度、纽约93度——医生说，真正更危险的是纽约
Humidity Makes NYC Heat More Dangerous Than Vegas
About this story
Humidity Makes NYC Heat More Dangerous Than Vegas. 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 10 key vocabulary words such as 非常、危险、办法 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 a lot of places in America are extremely hot.
Las Vegas: a hundred and eleven degrees.
New York: only ninety-three.
You would probably assume Las Vegas is more dangerous.
But doctors say: not necessarily.
Sometimes New York at ninety-three is more dangerous than Las Vegas at a hundred and eleven.
Why is that?
Because the way the body cools itself down is by sweating.
Sweat comes out through the skin, slowly dries, and carries the heat away.
This process is called evaporation.
The thing is, evaporation needs the air to help.
When the air is dry, sweat evaporates fast and you cool down.
The air in Las Vegas is extremely dry, so sweating works well.
The air in New York is very humid — it already has a lot of water in it.
With too much water in the air, the sweat cannot evaporate.
The sweat stays on your body, you are still hot, and your body wants to cool down but cannot.
So a humid ninety-three degrees may be more dangerous than a dry hundred and eleven.
These past few days, from California to many other states, there have been heat warnings.
At one outdoor event, seventy-two people went to see a doctor because of the heat.
Think about it: where you live, is the summer dry or humid?
Listen again
Try it without the transcript and notice what sounds clearer.
What vocabulary does this episode teach?
词汇非常热 = extremely hot. Stronger than 很.
更危险 = more dangerous — the whole point of the episode.
身体让自己变凉的办法 = the way the body cools itself.
这个过程，叫蒸发 = this process is called evaporation.
蒸发要空气帮忙 = evaporation needs the air to help.
身体想变凉，却做不到 = the body wants to cool down, yet cannot.
The mechanism the whole episode explains.
出汗 = to sweat.
空气很湿 = the air is very humid.
汗从皮肤上出来 = sweat comes out through the skin.
* beyond level超纲词
What grammar patterns appear in this episode?
语法A 比 B 还 + adj
"even more … than". 还 makes the comparison surprising.
九十三度的纽约，比一百一十一度的拉斯维加斯还危险。
……，却……
"…, yet …". Marks a result contrary to what was intended.
身体想变凉，却做不到。
V 不了
"cannot V" because conditions prevent it.
空气里水太多，汗就蒸发不了。
Proper nouns
专有名词Sources
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