That is great flexaJ. Many thanks. I really enjoyed learning Russian with classical literature. It is all a matter of taste. Maybe one day you will make a Russian course for us.
A tremendous vote of thanks to Alex for sharing these texts. I hope others will also contribute more content from Librivox in all languages.
Not all Librivox recordings are of equal quality. Some are excellent and some are mediocre. However, once we have these texts in our Library, nothing prevents a person from buying a commercially produced audio book of the same book, in order to enjoy the experience of a different, and possible superior narrator. The text will already be in our store, so the bulk of the work will have been done by Alex or others that provide us with this content.
I look forward to more of the same in other languages.
Good work Alex! That’s a fine selection of fantasy stories.
There are some cracking reads in the French section of Librivox (Verne in the original) but the German books seem a bit gloomy and gothic. I wish that the Russian section was a bit bigger
Helen, it seems that there are more active learners of the Russian language, then active learners from Russia, contributing to the Russian Library… I wonder why… Finding some content and sharing it is rather simple for a native speaker.
I mean, I am surprised that Russian is rather popular (some my shared items has been taken 20 times %) there are at least 20 LingQers who is interested in learning Russian to some extent)
Like Steve I am interested in listening to audiobooks in Russian and am even prepared to buy them. Unlike Steve I don’t have a local shop which sells them. I bought an audiobook from Finland over the internet but the quality was very poor. Can you suggest any audiobook brands or internet suppliers?
I like the soviet musical “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland”. Lyrics by Vladimir Vysotsky. This audiobook (actually it is not audiobook, it is an audio-play) was released somewhen at 1976-1977 at vinyl and reissued at 2005 on CD. This audiobook is copyrighted, so we will never have it on LingQ, but, I think it is one of the most interesting things. Of course, there are a lot of songs, but I don’t think that this audiobook is for children only. You know Lewis Carroll’s books are interesting both for children and adults.
And there is Dodo
I am not a great fan of audiobooks (I mean Russian audiobooks, I have and listen English and Swedish ones), so I cannot recommend you others… I have only one, that I’ve already recommended you But my sister have “The Lord of the Rings”… I’ll ask her could she recommend this audiobook and publisher.
Also if an audiobook is titled as “аудиоспектакль”, then it is an audioplay, with several voices of prefessional actors, perhaps recorded at Soviet time. So, the content itself most likely is very interesting, but the quality of sound can not be very good (if it is a copy of a copy of a copy of a very old record).
If an audiobook is titled as “аудиокнига”, then it is an audiobook, read by one narrator, and more likely is recorded at recent “standardless” time. So the quality of audiobook and record varies considerably…
I uploaded all the chapters of The Mysterious Island by Jules Verne (The Mysterious Island by Jules Verne - LingQ Language Library).
Not all chapters are visible in the Library section, click the “Select the whole collection” button to get the whole book.
Thank you for the recommedations Steve! there are certainly some really interesting sites on the net, and some great audio content to be had. I’m so happy that my Russian is getting nearly to the point where I can listen to audio books!
Alex (who is a star :-D) has contacted one of his favourite Russian audio book providers on my behalf and found out what the problem they have with doing business with me is. Since a lot of the international banking system has gone pear-shaped it’s hard for them to take money from the owner of a Sterling bank account. My Russian just wasn’t good enough to work that out.
It occurs to me that possibly North Americans have a stronger grip on the international currency system, and I’ve found a couple of US sites that seem willing to sell me foreign language downloads and take money from my Sterling credit card. That seems like a good solution to me, they are cheap and it means I don’t have to wait for the CDs to come via international mail. I guess the copyright laws in Britain and North America aren’t too different either.
I have also discovered that, since I upgraded my mp3 player, the “unlistenable” Russian audiobook I bought from Finland is now fairly intelligible. My husband puts it down to my new headphones being of a better quality.
I shall now have to finally stop grumbling about Russian audiobooks and wish you all a Happy New Year instead!
And in case anyone is wondering, I’m uploading Grimm’s fairytales in German, one by one (so far, only three, but stay tuned for more):
(I’ve cross-checked the transcripts over and over again; sometimes there are several versions of the same story, and I haven’t found any indication of which one is recorded)
First time when I discovered LingQ I tried to learn with a book. In my opinion the problem is that the language of the free books at Librivox and other sources is often a little bit ‘old fashioned’.
These books are often written in a special style which is not equal to the daily spoken language. I noted that these books often uses words that are unusual. So I stopped reading those kind of books and read and hear lessons which uses English that is spoken in our days. But maybe others like this old style.
Hi Jeff,
there are hundreds of versions of Grimm’s fairytale. The original tales are very long and sometimes they are gruesome so there are versions that are shortened or more kid friendly.
Did you make sure that the transcript is fitting the audio? I know it is hard work to make a transcript or to make sure that text and audio is equal. I do it all the time. At the moment I correct a transcript with a lot of differences and sometimes I think I could write it completely down in the same time
But my sister have “The Lord of the Rings”… I’ll ask her could she recommend this audiobook and publisher.