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 1 Chinese listening practice.
This is an HSK 1 Chinese listening episode that runs about 3 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 6 key vocabulary words such as 看、东西、小 and walks through 2 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
There is a competition.
This competition is women’s basketball.
Women’s basketball is them playing ball.
A lot of people like watching this competition.
This competition is very good to watch.
They play, and we watch.
We all like watching them play.
These last few years, more people have been watching.
A lot of people watch women’s basketball.
Right. Now let us talk about something not good.
In this competition, something not good happened.
Someone watching the game threw something onto the court.
What did they throw?
It is a grown-up thing. Not easy to say.
The first time, a lot of people laughed.
The second time, some people laughed too.
The third time, the fourth time — people kept throwing.
It was not one person throwing. It was a lot of people throwing.
Why were so many people throwing?
Because there is a company.
This company sells things online.
The company said: you throw it, and I will give you money.
The company wanted everyone to see the company’s name.
So the number of people throwing went up.
Is that funny?
Listen to these two things.
One time, the thing did not reach the court.
It reached the people watching the game.
It hit a child.
A twelve-year-old child.
Twelve years old is very small.
Another time, it hit a nine-year-old child.
The ones throwing were adults.
The ones hit were children.
Adults throw things, and children are not safe.
Children do not play; children watch.
So this is not funny.
The players spoke up too.
They said: we run on this court.
You throw things onto the court, and we are not safe.
We want to be safe.
We are on the court, and we want to be safe.
We want the people watching to be safe too.
Later, the competition people spoke up as well.
They said: you throw something, you leave.
For one year, you cannot come and watch.
This August, someone threw again.
This time was different.
One of the players saw him.
She was sitting beside the court.
She said: it is him.
And that person left.
From now on, he cannot come and watch.
He cannot come and watch any more.
One person saw him, and the whole thing was over.
Think about it:
Something a lot of people are laughing at — do you have to laugh too?
Listen again
Try it without the transcript and notice what sounds clearer.
What vocabulary does this episode teach?
词汇The word that carries this episode: people 看 the game, and one player 看见 the man.
What gets thrown, named plainly and never dwelt on.
十二岁，很小 — twelve years old is very small.
女子篮球 = women’s basketball.
打篮球 = to play basketball.
What the players asked for: 我们要安全。
* beyond level超纲词
What grammar patterns appear in this episode?
语法往……扔
To throw towards or into somewhere. 往 marks the direction.
往场里扔东西 — to throw things onto the court
往上看 — to look upwards
不是……，是……
Not X, but Y — used here to correct who is who.
不是一个人扔，是很多人扔。 — It was not one person throwing, it was a lot of people.
扔东西的，是大人。打到的，是小孩。
Proper Nouns
专有名词Sources
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