A Chinese podcast · Same story, 4 levels
小红书拿下世界杯：你可以在手机上免费看了
Xiaohongshu Lands the World Cup: You Can Watch Free on Your Phone
About this story
Xiaohongshu Lands the World Cup: You Can Watch Free on Your Phone. HSK 2 Chinese listening practice.
This is an HSK 2 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 12 key vocabulary words such as 今天、想、看 and walks through 4 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 we'll talk about
a news story related to a mobile app.
Have you heard of Xiaohongshu?
Xiaohongshu
is a Chinese mobile app.
A huge number of people use it —
over 400 million.
"四亿" (four hundred million)
is 400,000,000.
That's a very big number.
On Xiaohongshu,
what do people usually do?
They look at nice photos,
look at good restaurants,
look at nice clothes.
If someone wants to know where to go for fun,
they will, on Xiaohongshu,
look it up first.
So
Xiaohongshu has a special feature:
its users
are mostly women.
Many young women
love Xiaohongshu.
But
Xiaohongshu itself
has been thinking about one thing:
how can we
get more men
to use it too?
On May 28,
Xiaohongshu made a
decision that nobody saw coming.
They said:
the 2026 World Cup
can now be watched on Xiaohongshu.
And what's more,
all 104 matches
can be watched for free.
Free!
Why is this big news?
Let me tell you.
In China,
to watch the World Cup,
in the past there were mainly two places:
one was CCTV,
that is, the television in everyone's home.
The other was an
app called "Migu."
Apart from these two,
no other platform
could legally live-broadcast it.
But this time,
Xiaohongshu has also obtained
the live-broadcast rights.
That is to say,
now watching the World Cup
is much more convenient
than before.
You can watch with a phone.
You can also watch on the web.
You can even, from your phone,
cast it onto the TV.
And what's more,
Xiaohongshu has hired
people like Fan Zhiyi
and Xie Hui —
very famous football figures —
to commentate.
So the question is:
why is Xiaohongshu
doing this?
The answer
actually has to do with male users.
The people who watch football,
men are the majority.
Xiaohongshu hopes
through the World Cup
to get more men
to start using Xiaohongshu.
I read this news,
and I thought of one thing.
An app,
to attract new users,
really can put in great effort.
Watching 104 matches for free —
for Xiaohongshu
is a huge investment.
But if it can make
more people use Xiaohongshu,
they will feel
it was worth it.
For us as users,
being able to watch big matches free
is of course a good thing.
But also remember,
every match we watch
in fact "trades" our time
and our attention.
Finally I'll ask you:
If you were given two choices —
one is to pay,
on an app
specifically for watching matches;
the other is free,
but you will see a lot of ads —
which would you choose?
Think about it.
Okay.
That's all for today.
Talk tomorrow.
Listen again
Try it without the transcript and notice what sounds clearer.
What vocabulary does this episode teach?
词汇Today. The narrator opens with 今天我们说一个… news story.
To think, to want. Xiaohongshu 一直在想 — has been thinking — about how to attract more male users.
To watch. The whole story is about a new way to 看 the World Cup.
News. 一个让大家都没有想到的决定 — a piece of news no one saw coming.
To like. 很多年轻女生，都喜欢小红书 — many young women love Xiaohongshu.
To pay attention. The reflection: every match we watch trades our time and our 注意 — our attention.
App. Beyond HSK2. The episode is built around 小红书 as a 手机软件 — a mobile app.
User. Beyond HSK2. Xiaohongshu wants more 男生用户 — male users.
Free. Beyond HSK2. The headline: 全部 104 场比赛，都可以免费看 — all 104 matches free.
Live broadcast. Beyond HSK2. The deal grants Xiaohongshu the right of 直播 — to live-stream the matches.
To commentate. Beyond HSK2. Xiaohongshu hired Fan Zhiyi and Xie Hui to do 解说 — match commentary.
Ads. Beyond HSK2. The closing question contrasts paying for an ad-free app vs. watching free with many 广告.
* beyond level超纲词
What grammar patterns appear in this episode?
语法V 的人 + 比较 + adj
用…的人 turns a verb phrase into a noun phrase ("the people who do X"). The episode uses it to describe Xiaohongshu's gender skew.
用它的人，女生比较多。
看足球的人，男生比较多。
也就是说 restates a complex point in plainer language. The episode uses it to translate a legal claim into a clear summary.
也就是说，现在你看世界杯，比以前，方便了很多。
而且 + new fact
而且 stacks another point onto what was just said — usually one that strengthens the claim. The episode uses it to add the free-pricing, then the celebrity commentary.
而且，全部 104 场比赛，都可以免费看。
而且，小红书还请了，范志毅、谢晖这样，很有名的足球人，做解说。
如果给你两个选择——一个是 A，另一个是 B，你会选哪一个?
A natural way to pose a binary decision question — used by the narrator to push the listener to actually weigh trade-offs.
如果给你两个选择——
你会选哪一个？
Proper Nouns
专有名词Free account
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