Audio books

general   Wednesday, May 22, 2002, 08:39 GMT
I was wondering if anyone uses audio books for learning English. And if so how can one do it and does it really work?
Adam Podhorski   Wednesday, May 22, 2002, 10:20 GMT
When I was still a university student, I was taught English using the famous Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy for a while. Then I became a great fan of this story. It consists of 12 parts of roughly 30 mins. each. You can also buy the book with the script to resolve all the fragments you can not understand. I was using the system of writing down the dialogues from listening. Sometimes I had to relisten some parts for more than 20 times to finally figure out what one person or the other was saying.

I have found it a great help. I was able to broaden my vocabulary a lot, understand even the most rapid speech. And what is the best of it, you can "feel" the classic British humour. The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy is in UK something like Rejs in Poland. And after all you can learn the ultimate answer to life, the universe and everything...

Greetings

Adam
Tom   Saturday, May 25, 2002, 09:58 GMT
In high school, I used a tape with 10 short stories in American English (the title was "Shaggy Dog Stories"). This is how I practiced the sounds of American English.

I have listened to the tape so many times that I even today I can tell the first story from memory.

I definitely recommend audiobooks. It is impossible to learn good pronunciation without listening to English a lot. However, finding an optimal audiobook may be challenging. If you are a beginner, the speech should be slow and clear. It also helps if there are many different speakers.

(I'm talking about the best audiobook for learning pronunciation -- if you want to improve your listening skills, the rate of speech should probably be faster so that it's challenging.)
Michal Ryszard Wojcik   Sunday, May 26, 2002, 20:26 GMT
I finished listening to the English audiobook version of Crime And Punishment by Feodor Dostoyevsky. The audiobook consists of three CDs. I listened to each CD at least four times.

The language was very advanced. There were lots of rare literary words. Each time I heard a rare word I was very glad. Now I see that thanks to using SuperMemo for many years my passive vocabulary is large enough to listen to the most complicated language.

I also got the chance to refresh all those rare words in my memory. After listening to the audiobook so many times, those words are fresh in my memory and my knowledge of them is enriched through hearing the same sentences many times.

I recommend audiobooks to advanced learners who want to enjoy their own word power. I recommend audiobooks to all the SuperMemo fans who have thousands of difficult words in their collections.

I also liked the British accent of the actor who recorded the audiobook. The accent was so clear that it was music to my pronunciation ears. I recommend British audiobooks to all lovers of British English.
rainer   Tuesday, July 02, 2002, 21:24 GMT
it's definitely worth trying audio books - i personally prefer to listen to real taped conversations rather than academical books because i am more interested to understand how people speak so that i know how to talk in an everyday's conversation.

there are plenty of excellent sources out there - english as a foreign language text books that have got supplementary audio material.

in this case you can listen and read at the same time. also, i found it quite comfortable to transfer the audio from tape to mini cd - in this case it's much much easier to repeat any sentences/sequences you don't understand.

good luck