A Chinese podcast · Same story, 4 levels
有人把成人用品扔进 WNBA 球场，一家虚拟币公司承认是他们找人扔的。被打中的是小孩。
People Threw Sex Toys Onto WNBA Courts for a Crypto Stunt. The Ones Who Got Hit Were Children.
About this story
People Threw Sex Toys Onto WNBA Courts for a Crypto Stunt. The Ones Who Got Hit Were Children. HSK 3 Chinese listening practice.
This is an HSK 3-4 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 8 key vocabulary words such as 场、扔、观众 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
The women’s basketball league in America has been drawing more and more spectators.
Last summer, in the middle of a game, someone threw an adult product from the stands onto the court.
The first time it was taken as a joke; then came a second, a third, a fourth.
Within two weeks, several arenas had the same thing happen.
Why were so many people performing the same action?
The answer is not in the stands. It is online.
There is a crypto-currency company whose name is taken from that object, and it was them paying people to throw them.
It is simply taking someone else’s game and using it as your own advertising.
What changed the nature of it was the following two things.
One time, the thrown object landed in the stands and hit a twelve-year-old girl.
The thrower was thirty-two, and was arrested afterwards.
Another time, a man and his nine-year-old niece were hit as well.
The ones doing it were adult men; the ones hit were children.
The players said: we are running at full speed on that court, and you are throwing hard objects onto it. This is a safety question.
The league then set a rule: anyone throwing something is removed on the spot and cannot enter for a year.
This August it came back — but the ending was different.
Reese was sitting courtside, saw the man, and raised a hand to point.
Security took him away; he was arrested, and cannot enter again.
One player, with one finger, ended it.
A joke, while it still belongs to one person, is a joke.
When it becomes an action a crowd performs together, when a company is paying to push it, when it starts hitting twelve-year-olds — the nature of it has already changed.
Think about it:
Something a lot of people are laughing at — would you laugh along?
Listen again
Try it without the transcript and notice what sounds clearer.
What vocabulary does this episode teach?
词汇往场里扔 — to throw onto the court. 进场 = to enter the venue.
The verb of the episode.
观众席 = the stands. The answer, though, was not in the stands.
被当成笑话 — taken as a joke, which is exactly what it stopped being.
虚拟 virtual, 币 currency.
Chinese distinguishes this from 外甥女, a sister’s daughter.
The word the episode turns on: 性质就变了 — its nature changed.
Colloquial and very useful: 蹭广告 = to piggyback on someone else’s attention.
* beyond level超纲词
What grammar patterns appear in this episode?
语法当……，当……，当……
Stacks three conditions to build to a conclusion.
当它变成一群人一起做的事，当有公司出钱推动，当它打到十二岁的孩子，性质就变了。
……的时候，是……
States what something is while a condition holds, implying it stops being that later.
一个笑话，只属于一个人的时候，是笑话。
用……结束了
Ended something by means of X.
一个球员，用一根手指，结束了这件事。
Proper Nouns
专有名词Sources
来源Free account
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