A2 · Getting started
Longer stories about daily life, past and future.
- Dyret som lager terninger Wombats make cube shaped poop, and now we know why. Audio
- Denne fuglen sover mens den flyr Frigatebirds fly for many days and sleep only a little. Audio
- Lunsjen et helt land spiser In the Dominican Republic, everyone eats the same lunch at the same time. Audio
- Middag laget av en vulkan In the Azores, people cook food inside a hot volcano. Audio
- Det siste toget Tomas misses the last train in Tokyo and sleeps in a tiny room. Audio
- Den tomme koppen On his first day, Pedro drinks from a cup that is not his. Audio
- Nummer førtisju Carla waits a long time at the clinic for a small cut. Audio
- Fortapt i Lisboa Sofía gets lost in Lisbon and a woman helps her with a map. Audio
- Rommet med en balkong Marcos gets a hotel room with a nice balcony. Audio
- Et bord til én Mia eats alone in a small restaurant, and the waiter helps her choose. Audio
- Krydderet som en gang kostet like mye som gull Saffron comes from tiny flower threads picked by hand, and for most of history a pound of it cost about the... Audio
- Innsjøen som forsvinner hver sommer In Slovenia, a huge lake fills a valley in winter and then vanishes underground every summer, leaving... Audio
- Parken ved siden av huset mitt A squirrel describes the small park next to its tree: the pigeons by the benches, Mr. Badger and his bread,... Audio
- Byen som legger gull på iskrem Kanazawa in Japan makes almost all of the country's gold leaf, and wraps whole sheets of it around soft ice... Audio
- Flyturen som varer nitti sekunder A tiny plane hops between two Orkney islands in Scotland on the shortest scheduled flight in the world. Audio
- Rop, eller du går glipp av stoppet ditt A shared minibus with no bell and no screen, where the only way off is to say so out loud, early and twice. Audio
- Slurp høyt, det er høflig In Japan, slurping your noodles loudly is not rude, it is a sign that you are enjoying the meal. Audio
- Fossen som faller oppover On very windy days, strong gusts can blow a Norwegian waterfall's spray back up into the sky. Audio
- Sirkelen og morgenbåten The Ring of Brodgar at dusk, then the small practical business of leaving an island, done in four sentences... Audio
- Nittidagerskornet In a bar in Kirkwall, a flat dark bannock turns out to be the reason the islands were farmable at all. Audio
- Samlingen på skjærene Grey seals are hauling out on the low rocks before the pupping season, and the questions Polly has been... Audio
- Bygd av det de hadde On Lamb Holm, two army huts hold a chapel that prisoners of war made out of scrap, and the only honest... Audio
- Landsbyen under stormen At the Bay of Skaill, a guide with a carrying voice explains a village that a storm returned to the light... Audio
- Stolen ved peisen A guesthouse above the harbour, an argument about what counts as a quiet room, and a chair whose whole... Audio
- Båten kommer inn Polly lands at Stromness off the morning boat and works out, one question at a time, how a place with no... Audio
- Rosa finnes ikke Pink has no wavelength of its own; it is a color the brain invents when the eyes see red and blue light... Audio
- Du lyser akkurat nå The human body constantly emits an extremely faint light, invisible to the eye but detectable with a... Audio
- Tåken lukker seg bak henne On her last afternoon, Polly flies high over the island before fog rolls in and hides it behind her. Audio
- En landsby koblet til en vulkan Polly learns that the same volcano heat that cooked lunch also warms a big public pool and heats homes in... Audio
- Middag begravd ved daggry Polly watches a cook bury pots of food in the ground, where the volcano's heat cooks dinner with no fire. Audio
- Ett krater, to farger Polly finds a huge old crater with two lakes, one blue and one green, joined together under a strip of land. Audio
- Fuglen som ble oppgitt to ganger Polly looks for the priolo, a tiny grey and pink bird that lives only in one forest and was once thought to... Audio
- De to siste hagene i Europa Polly finds one of the only two tea farms left in Europe, started after the island's orange trees died. Audio
- Ni øyer, tre plater Polly arrives over São Miguel, the biggest of the nine Azores islands, made of black rock, green fields,... Audio
- Blekkspruten og de tre hjertene The octopus is a clever sea animal with three hearts and blue blood. Audio
- Kablene under havet Long cables under the ocean carry almost all of the information that travels between countries. Audio
- Det Lange Løpet Som Heter Maraton The marathon is a very long running race with a curious and surprising history. Audio
- Hvor kaffe kommer fra Coffee begins as a red fruit on a green plant and travels far before it fills a cup. Audio
- Å sove på et nattog Night trains in Europe carry travelers between cities while they sleep in cozy beds. Audio
- Amazonas, den største elven The Amazon is the river that carries the most water in the world. Audio
- Hvordan bier lager honning Honeybees turn sweet flower nectar into golden honey through hard teamwork in the hive. Audio
- Den lange silkeveien The Silk Road was a famous trade route that linked China with Europe for many centuries. Audio
- Bestill aldri en latte i Italia In Italy, the word latte does not mean coffee. One small word can bring you a big surprise. Audio
- Den lille fuglen i klokken In Germany's Black Forest, carved wooden cuckoo clocks call out every hour while children wait and laugh. Audio
- Fisken som klatrer i fossefall In Hawaii, a fish smaller than your finger climbs up waterfalls taller than buildings, using its mouth as a... Audio
- Byen hvor det var forbudt å dø When a small Italian town ran out of space in its cemetery, the mayor signed an order telling people not to... Audio
- Lunsjen som aldri slutter In Spain, the best part of lunch starts when the food is finished. It even has its own name. Audio
- Katten som tar bussen Every morning a cat climbs onto the same city bus, watches the streets go by, and gets off at his own stop. Audio
- Det første lyset i landsbyen While the whole village sleeps, one window glows: the baker lights the oven so fresh bread will be ready by... Audio
- Damp og små tallerkener A first night at a Taipei night market, where pointing, smiling, and one brave question buy a very good... Audio
- Den gamle historien Polly starts down the steps and hears a story about them. Audio
- Polly tar bussen Polly's first bus ride: does this bus go downtown, one ticket, how much, where do I get off, next stop,... Audio
- Polly spør om veien Polly is lost on the way to the library and asks an owl for directions: excuse me, where is it, is it far,... Audio
- Polly bestiller en kaffe Polly's first cafe order: good afternoon, a coffee with milk, do you have churros, the check please, how... Audio
- Polly på markedet Berta takes Polly to the market. Polly buys fruit for the first time: what is this, two apples, how much, a... Audio
- Polly møter noen Polly moves to a new street and meets Berta the bear. First greetings: hello, your name, nice to meet you,... Audio
- Vladivostok Polly arrives in Vladivostok and flies off over the Pacific Ocean. Audio
- Amur Polly reaches the Amur River and meets a rare crane on the sixth day of the Trans-Siberian. Audio
- Bajkalsjøen Polly spends a day on the train along Lake Baikal, the deepest and oldest lake on Earth. Audio
- Tidssoner Polly explores the dining car and learns that the train uses one time zone across all of Russia. Audio
- Over Uralfjellene Polly crosses the Ural Mountains, the line between Europe and Asia, on the Trans-Siberian train. Audio
- Bjørkeskogene Polly watches Russian birch forests from the Trans-Siberian train and learns that forty percent of Russia... Audio
- Jaroslavskij stasjon Polly boards the Trans-Siberian train at Moscow and begins her seven-day journey to Vladivostok. Audio
- Farvel til Pasta Polly says goodbye to Pasta the octopus and flies out of Naples. Audio
- Redaktøren i seg selv Polly learns that octopuses can change their own nervous systems by editing RNA in real time. Audio
- Pizza og den lange lunsjen Polly has lunch with Chiara at a Neapolitan pizzeria and learns about traditional Neapolitan pizza. Audio
- Huden som Ser Polly learns that octopus skin can sense colours even though octopus eyes cannot. Audio
- Kroppen som Tenker Polly watches an octopus solve a maze with two arms working independently. Audio
- Glasskrukken Polly watches an octopus open a jar to catch a crab and learns how short an octopus's life is. Audio
- Napolibukta Polly arrives in Naples and meets a giant Pacific octopus at the world's oldest marine biology institute. Audio
- Forlate Dalen Polly says goodbye to Ranger Tomas and flies west out of Yosemite. Audio
- Melkeveien over Glacier Point Polly watches the Milky Way at Glacier Point and looks through a telescope at the centre of our galaxy. Audio
- Halvkuppelen Polly flies up Half Dome on warm air with a flock of swifts, sees the summit, then glides back down. Audio
- Falken som Stuper Polly tries to copy a peregrine falcon's dive, learning what makes the falcon the fastest animal in the world. Audio
- Sequoiaen Polly visits a giant sequoia nearly 3,000 years old and learns about its fireproof bark. Audio
- På Tur Med Vokteren Tomas Polly spends the morning in Ranger Tomas's truck, learning about bear feeding and peregrine falcon nests. Audio
- Over Dalen Polly flies into Yosemite Valley, watches climbers on El Capitan, and rides the shuttle bus at dusk. Audio
- Duften av kanel A new neighbor leaves a small surprise outside her door. Audio
- To kilo tålmodighet A first trip to the local market with a vendor who refuses to let her leave with the wrong tomatoes. Audio
B1 · Finding your flow
Polly's weekly adventures and real-world stories.
- Løpet der osten alltid vinner Once a year in England, people chase a wheel of cheese down a dangerously steep hill, and the cheese almost... Audio
- To helt nye dyr, hver på størrelse med en fingernegl Scientists in Montenegro just described two snail species new to science, found on limestone cliffs in a... Audio
- Dagen en ekte bille ødela en datamaskin In nineteen forty-seven, engineers found an actual moth stuck inside a giant computer, taped it into their... Audio
- Reken med en sol inne i kloen A small ocean shrimp snaps its claw so fast that it creates a flash of heat nearly as hot as the surface of... Audio
- Huset delt mellom to land In a small town on the Belgian-Dutch border, some houses sit in two countries at once, and the front door... Audio
- Hæren som tapte for fugler In nineteen thirty-two the Australian military was sent against emus eating the wheat crop in Western... Audio
- Sjimpanser har dialekter A new study of more than eleven thousand recorded calls found that young chimpanzees in different parts of... Audio
- Internett ligger under vann Almost all international internet traffic travels along cables lying on the sea floor, which break... Audio
- Byen som bor i én bygning Almost every resident of Whittier, Alaska lives inside a single fourteen storey building reached through a... Audio
- Kartet ditt ville vært feil innen lunsj Satellite clocks tick faster than clocks on the ground, and if nobody corrected for it your phone would... Audio
- Du gløder. Ingen kan se det. Human skin gives off a faint light all day long, and a Japanese team photographed it in a sealed dark room. Audio
- Denne blåfargen finnes bare ett sted A stony beach in the Dominican southwest, one pebble that is blue all the way through, and the single... Audio
- En arm som kan smake Octopus suckers contain special receptors that let an arm taste whatever it touches, even in total darkness. Audio
- Friidrettens største lønningspose noensinne A brand new athletics championship this month paid its winners more than the sport has ever offered before. Audio
- Å lære en datamaskin å snakke hval Researchers are using artificial intelligence to search for real structure inside the clicking patterns of... Audio
- Trærnes langsomme hjerteslag Laser scans at night revealed that trees pulse gently every few hours, possibly pumping water through their... Audio
- Blomster klokka tre om natta At three in the morning, Bangkok's biggest flower market is more awake than midday, and it never really... Audio
- Ti tusen utøvere, én åpningskveld The 2026 Asian Games, hosted jointly by Aichi and Nagoya, Japan, bring together roughly ten thousand... Audio
- Banken som bare tar imot ost An Italian bank keeps a vault holding more than half a million wheels of Parmigiano Reggiano, accepted as... Audio
- Batteritallet ditt er en gjetning A phone's battery percentage is not a direct measurement, but an estimate calculated from voltage and... Audio
- Denne stranden er laget av søppel A sparkling beach in Northern California is made entirely of old dumped glass, smoothed into colorful... Audio
- Ingen fjerde etasje noe sted In much of East Asia, elevators skip the number four entirely, because it sounds exactly like the word for... Audio
- Én kafé, to land In one small town, the border between Belgium and the Netherlands runs straight through streets, houses and... Audio
- Stranden som lyser blått om natten On some warm coasts, the sea lights up electric blue when you touch it. The light comes from billions of... Audio
- Meldingene dine reiser under vann Almost everything you send across an ocean travels through cables lying on the sea floor, not through... Audio
- Hotellet som beveger seg mens du sover On a European night train, you fall asleep in one country and wake up in another, with the Alps outside... Audio
- Byen som avdekket en elv For fifty years, Seoul hid a river under an elevated highway. Then the city tore the highway down, and the... Audio
- Å gå på havets bunn Twice a day the North Sea pulls back for kilometres, and people walk barefoot across the bare seabed before... Audio
- Oldtidens mennesker trivdes i regnskogen Scientists once thought ancient humans avoided rainforests. New evidence from West Africa says they thrived... Audio
- Dagen solen forsvant This week, northern Spain watched the first total solar eclipse over mainland Europe in twenty seven years. Audio
- Hvorfor telefonen din dør i kulda Your phone shows forty percent battery, then dies in the snow. The battery is not empty. It is cold, and... Audio
- Hvorfor honning fra 3000 år siden fortsatt er spiselig Honey jars from Egyptian tombs three thousand years old are still edible. The chemistry behind a food that... Audio
- Tenniskampen som varte i tre dager The longest tennis match ever played: Isner vs. Mahut, Wimbledon 2010, eleven hours, three days, a final... Audio
- Blekkspruten som lirket opp låsen An octopus called Inky escaped his aquarium tank at night through a drain pipe, and what it reveals about... Audio
- Slottet kongen nesten aldri bodde i A Bavarian king built a fairy-tale castle on an alpine crag, slept there only a handful of nights, and left... Audio
- Ti kilometer opp Passenger planes cruise about ten kilometres above the ground. That number is not random: it is where the... Audio
- Klatring i det Tørreste Stedet Polly arrives at ESO's Paranal Observatory in the Atacama, the driest place on Earth, where four enormous... Audio
- Redaktøren av Seg Selv Polly learns that octopuses edit their own RNA in real time, building a brain that is different in each... Audio
- Falken i stup Polly tries to copy a peregrine falcon's dive from El Capitan, learning how the falcon's third eyelid and... Audio
- På tur med Ranger Tomas Polly spends a morning in Ranger Tomas's truck, learning how he tracks bear feeding in wildflower meadows... Audio
- Søndagspaella An adult granddaughter visits home and finds her grandfather hasn't forgotten anything yet. Audio
- Nummer førtisyv A small injury, an old magazine, and a waiting room that teaches patience. Audio
- Toget til Granada An overheard phone call on the train turns a long trip into a kind of company. Audio
- Feil bokhandel A simple coffee order leads to a strange conversation about a bookshop that doesn't exist anymore. Audio
- Villfaren i Lisboa A wrong turn on a steep street becomes the best part of the trip. Audio
- Rom 304 har utsikt A late check-in turns into a small gift when the hotel runs out of rooms on the lower floors. Audio
- Et bord for én A traveler eats alone in Madrid and discovers the waiter is the real star of the meal. Audio
C1 · Stretch yourself
Rich, natural texts about places, history and ideas.
- To arter ingen hadde navngitt, funnet på en klippevegg Scientists in Montenegro have described two snail species new to science, found on limestone cliffs in a... Audio
- Reken med en sol inni kloen A small ocean shrimp snaps its claw so violently that it produces a flash of heat nearly as hot as the... Audio
- Krigen Australia tapte mot emuer In nineteen thirty-two the Australian military was deployed against emus devastating the wheat crop in... Audio
- Sjimpanser har, viser det seg, aksenter A new study of more than eleven thousand recorded calls finds that young chimpanzees in different parts of... Audio
- Banken som gir lån mot ost An Italian bank stores and ages more than half a million wheels of Parmigiano Reggiano, accepted as... Audio
- Hvorfor kartet ditt ville vært feil innen lunsj Satellites tick at a different rate than clocks on the ground, and without a deliberate correction your... Audio
- Gløden huden din aldri slutter å avgi Human skin gives off a faint light around the clock, invisible to the eye, as a Japanese team confirmed by... Audio
- Det som egentlig frakter ordene dine over et hav Almost everything sent between continents travels not through satellites but through cables lying on the... Audio
- Hotellet som krysser grenser mens du sover On a European night train, a traveller falls asleep in one country and wakes in another, with the Alps... Audio
- Elven Seoul holdt skjult i et halvt århundre Seoul spent decades entombing a river beneath a highway, then reversed course and dug it back into the... Audio
- Det søndagen fremdeles krever An adult granddaughter returns home for Sunday paella and discovers that her octogenarian grandfather's... Audio
- Byen som bor i én eneste bygning Almost the entire population of Whittier, Alaska lives inside a single fourteen storey building, reached... Audio
- Slottet kongen knapt rakk å oppleve Bavaria's King Ludwig the Second poured a fortune into a fairy tale castle he would inhabit for barely a... Audio
- En spasertur over havets bunn Twice each day, the tide withdraws for kilometres along the Wattenmeer coast, inviting walkers onto the... Audio
- Telefonen din er ikke død. Den er bare kald. A phone that shows forty percent battery and then dies the moment you step into the cold has not run out of... Audio
- Honning som har overlevd imperier Honey sealed inside Egyptian tombs thousands of years ago remains perfectly edible today, and the reason... Audio
- Blekkspruten som rømte fra låsen An octopus named Inky vanished from a New Zealand aquarium overnight, and the ingenious route he took to... Audio
- Hvalen som svømte femten tusen kilometer Polly learns about two humpback whales who swam 14,000+ km from Australia to Brazil, breaking the world... Audio
- Klatringen i det Tørreste Stedet Polly arrives at ESO's Paranal Observatory in the Atacama, the driest place on Earth, where four enormous... Audio
- Napolibukten Polly arrives in Naples and is welcomed into the Stazione Zoologica Anton Dohrn, the world's oldest marine... Audio
- Falken i stupet Polly tries to copy a peregrine falcon's dive after seeing one launch from El Capitan, learning about the... Audio
- Kjempen Polly visits Mariposa Grove and climbs into the canopy of the Grizzly Giant, a giant sequoia nearly 3,000... Audio