On youtube, you can read along while listening to my episode
Shownotes
This episode is related to episode E05- read out loud.
To get your free audio book visit librivox.com
Get your free ebook at gutenberg.org.
The following websites will help you to look up the right pronunciation:
oxforddictionaries.com (British and American Pronunciation!)
Forvo.com (words spoken by people from all over the world with different accents – the quality varies form speaker to speaker)
Leo.org (the classic – there are several languages to choose from)
Full Transcript
In this episode of my fluent podcast I want to go into more detail on a subject I already mentioned in one of my previous episodes called E05- read out loud (4:14). Back then I mentioned librivox.org. Librivox is a non-commercial, non-profit and ad-free project.
On their website www.librivox.org you can get free public domain audiobooks. With no strings attached! That allows you to boost your listening and speaking skills – for free. You can either download the whole audio book directly on the website. Or you could get the app on Google Play. There is also a Pro version of the app, but there, you will have to pay about 2 bucks. But you are not forced to do so. You can just download the entire audio book and listen to it on your mobile phone!
The crucial thing here is that you can get probably all of the audio book in form of a written version. You will find them on www.gutenberg.org. This will allow you to read along while listening to the audio book. They are even available in many, many different languages. Futhermore – if you use the librivox app, you can put reading marks to get your vocabulary more organized (Don’t underestimate the power of reading marks!).
All books at librivox were read by volunteers from around the world.
And by the way Librixox will actually celebrate their 11th anniversary on the 10th of August 2016. This is an enormous achievement for an organisation that is purely volunteer driven, without staff, without offices, a budget of zero, and not even big advertisements campaigns. Wow respect to that!
They will have about 10,000 catalogued projects by the 11th anniversary!
I found librivox such a great site that I decided to dedicate this episode to librivox.
LibriVox audiobooks are as mentioned before read by volunteers from all over the world. Everyone can join the project. You don’t need be a professional voice-over artis. You don’t need to have a professional equipment neither.
New mini Goal (Is it really that small!?)
That’s why I decided to volonteer for librivox by signing up over there. My goal for the next 2 weeks ist to upload one chapter of the book called Poison Island by Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch. You can get the free book on www.gutenberg.org or directly here. (The chapter contains 2130 words)
this was about 2 weeks ago I think. or even more. and to be honest. I am still struggling to get it pronounced well.
And why not ask another enthusiastic English learner what she thinks about the idea of learning through volunteering at librivox? This is my very first interview if you can call that so. It was very spontanious.
So, here comes the short interview:
What do you think about reading out loud a chapter for librivox in order to improve the pronunciation?
I think it’s a very good idea but you should make sure that it’s not a too difficult chapter so that you can read it out fluently and you don’t have to look up every second word and the pronunciation of every word. So – that is kind of – how do you say it? Not very motivating to do that.
So, yeah but I think It’s a very good idea.
And what do you say
at(to) my chapter. What do you think about it. Is it appropriate to learn or is it too difficult.
I think it is too complicated because there are a lot of special words you don’t use normally, in normal conversation.
So maybe it would be easier to read a book that is less complicated,
for exemple you can read Harry Potter or another book that is not written at a such high language level.
I completely agree with you because it’s doo difficult.
End of Interview.
Yeah I think the idea was good, but the book I’ve chosen is way too difficult. I am a bit overwhelmed by the difficulty. Maybe I should listen more often to my own episodes and follow my own recommandations and tricks.
You will hear from me again, especiallly if I can manage the librivox goal. Or if I fail.
END of Interview
Perhaps you would like to join librivox and read a book in your langauge? Feel free to head over to www.librivox.com.
I am your host, Daniel Goodson, have a good one ! thanks
Languages on librivox.org (not all languages mentioned)
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Yiddish
ייִדיש
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