chinese audio books

[nipponman]

Ok, thanks xiaokui, I'd better get to listening.

[cutty]

http://www.china1000.net/downlist/s_223_1.html

[Hero Doug]

THanks for the link, I'm downloading a few right now to test out the quality.

I just downloaded the first audio book. The download link it at the bottom, not the top.

Its' many MP3 files (I assume chapters) with clear pronunciation, she doesn't speak too fast either.

I'll try out some other's and see how they are.

[cutty]

I think the sound quanlity is OK, I have listened many books from there.

Three books are actually translated from English novels, Daniel Defoe's "Robinson Crusoe" (鲁滨逊漂流记), Jules Verne's "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea" (海底两万里) and "The Island" (神秘岛). If you have read the original books, it also should be easy for you to listen and understand.

[atitarev]

I had trouble navigating and finding how to download Robinson Crusoe.

I have a book in simplified Chinese with a pinyin phonetic guide. I wonder if the text matches!

[thph2006]

I also had trouble until I tried with internet explorer. The formatting was all screwed up in Firefox and when I finally found the actual download link it started the process and then gave me about 50 errors. No problem with IE.

[atitarev]

It's probably beyond me - to many download links, pop-up windows and stuff, don't know which link is safe to open .

I got a bit further with MS IE but got stuck anyway.

[Hero Doug]

Go to an audio book, click on the big blue link. On the next page look for the link that I have pointed to in my attachment.

You'll be taken to a new page, I always click on the top link because the bottom link takes me to some other site.

[cutty]

Nice job Hero.

If you are interested with the three novels I listed above:

"Robinson Crusoe" is the 1st novel

"Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea" is the 5th novel

"The Island" is the 3rd novel.

Some files may require password to unzip it, the password is www.china1000.net

[atitarev]

Thanks!

Only Robinson Crusoe disappeared. I'll use the search.

[here2learn]

They're like old fashioned "sit around the big radio in the living room in the 1930's" style, or so I feel. I don't know what the subject matter usually is; though it seems like they're short stories. One time I picked up that it was something about someone getting married, and they described the girl's long hair.

They speak quite slowly, or at least naturally but with pauses between sentences or ideas. And the narrator is usually standard or Beijinghua Mandarin, but not too Beijinghua.

Often when I take a cab I get to hear part of these radio stories (I'm in Beijing). There's one station that has them quite often. I'll check next time I'm in a cab for the station, but for now does anyone know what station it is, or ...

more importantly...

Can I get these stories online somewhere or on a CD or something? Or something similar?

I'll search myself, but other than a typical google search I'm not very well versed in resources and finding odd things. Maybe someone already knows.

Thanks.

PS- I had some children's "books on tape" but they spoke kinda fast and the topics were fairy tales. These radio stories seem slow and real-life-like, that's the quality I'm looking for.

[roddy]

When I've looked for this stuff in the past I've had the best results searching for 有声读物. A search for that turns up Audio-books.cn, which might be a good place to start, while on amazon.cn it turns up several pages of results. I know there are some on verycd.com also - 空镜子 and 骆驼祥子 definitely. 空镜子 sounds like the style you describe, slow and slushy.

Taxi drivers tend to listen to 北京交通台. Is it the one with this jingle and the messages from people who left large amounts of cash in the back of random taxis?

[KONDDE]

Hey RODDY,

Tks a lot for the tip! I´m looking for to try a cool method that a found on AJATT (All Japanese All The Time web site) and a Korean book which has a nice aproach to learn a language, both w-pages are listed below:

http://www.alljapaneseallthetime.com/blog/about

and

http://www.ba.tyg.jp/~welchr/Chung.html

I´m trying to find a book without translation but it is hard to find, I started to listen p-lessons but is very boring to listen something with a second voice cutting the conversations fluxos,

Tks!!

[Takeru47]

I have decided to give audio books a try (with the appropriate text) as a method of reading/listening practice. I found some on amazon.cn, but I am confused about the number of chapters the products state. 三國演義 is stated to have 365 chapters in the audio book, but the novel itself only has 120. Also, for 西遊記 the audio book states 84 chapters, yet the novel contains 100. I would love to get these though, as I believe it will greatly improve my pronunciation and ability to remember the tones by listening to the audio while following along in the book. I am only concerned about the chapter numbering conflict and the quality of said audio. On another note, I found a massive collection of audio books totaling 3,600 hours for under $90 USD.

西遊記 audio book

三國演義 audio book

Massive collection of audio books

If anyone could attempt to explain the discrepancy between the chapter numbering, that would be great.

Edit: I just found another cheaper set that has tons of audio books, though I am not sure of the quality.

Any thoughts?

[yersi]

What kind of level are you currently reading at?

[Takeru47]

I haven't read any novels yet, but I can follow along in (Chinese) manga decently. I know that these novels are way above my level right now, but I have a (supposedly) very faithful English translation of 西遊記 by W.J.F. Jenner that I can use to follow along.

I originally planned to gradually work my way up to full novels, but I decided to give bilingual reading a try (with exact audio in Mandarin) and see how it works out. I know that 西遊記 has just under 4800 unique characters (with ~700 being used once and another ~500 being used 2-3 times total). I don't even know half that many characters yet, but I was thinking about learning them as they come up. Of course, this project would have to be spread over several months. I am still debating whether or not this would be beneficial at this point in my studies, or if I should try to find a good English translation of an easier novel. I know that novels such as 西遊記 occasionally use archaic language, but it should mostly be the same as what is used today (except for the poems), right?

I have been reading about using bilingual texts with audio as a study method for foreign language. The basic idea is to internalize the meanings of phrases, words, sentences, etc. by using the English translation to first introduce the idea, then transfer that idea to the target text. You are supposed to just move along at a normal pace, picking up frequently used words/phrases throughout, ignoring the fact that you don't understand every word yet and just focusing on the story itself. As you move through the story, you gradually use the translation less and less until you can read the novel entirely in the target language.

I don't recall reading about anyone using this method for Chinese, but it has been used for many other languages. The only slight problem I see with Chinese is the fact that word boundaries (spaces) do not exist, so it takes a bit more work in that regard.

[imron]

I know that novels such as 西遊記 occasionally use archaic language

Nope, they use it quite frequently. Think of it like Shakespeare. If you were learning English, you probably wouldn't go from reading Tintin to reading Shakespeare. My advice would be to try contemporary novels first, and once you are comfortable with that, then move on to the classics.

[roddy]

Merged a number of topics - suggest you take a look at the links and suggestions above.

[Takeru47]

Nope, they use it quite frequently. Think of it like Shakespeare. If you were learning English, you probably wouldn't go from reading Tintin to reading Shakespeare. My advice would be to try contemporary novels first, and once you are comfortable with that, then move on to the classics.

Yes, I was thinking about that, but I don't know of any contemporary novels with faithful English translations with which to try this method. I am not familiar with any contemporary authors outside of 金庸, 魯迅, 王小波, and 巴金. To my knowledge, only a few of 金庸's novels have been translated into English and I have no idea as to the faithfulness of those translations. If anyone knows of any (interesting) contemporary novels with a faithful English translation and exact audio book, please let me know, as I would love to try out this method.

Merged a number of topics - suggest you take a look at the links and suggestions above.

Yes, I checked those threads before posting (and there is another that I believe you missed). This site (which was posted in another thread) is where I found a lot of audio books for download, though some better quality than others.

[imron]

If having an English translation is important to you, you are probably better off looking for contemporary English novels that have been translated into Chinese. There is a far greater range available although you're less likely to be able to find an exact audio for them.

Although the bilingual book method sounds great in theory, to be honest, whenever I tried this in the past I found that instead of reading more and more in the target language, I ended up ignoring more and more of the target language. Especially for something like Chinese, where if you still need the English to understand the sentence you're going to be looking up a lot of characters. This gets tiring very quickly, hence the reason you ignore the target language.

Instead of aiming for something which you mention is "way above" your level, my advice would be go for something "slightly above" your level. Build up your vocabularly and confidence in reading Chinese without English and once you are happy with that, then move on to novels.

As an aside, you might find the first episode project useful. The language used in most of these shows is not too difficult, and each show will have Chinese subtitles (usually hardcoded). You'll not find English translations, but you will find a bunch of vocab lists for them, as well as other people here who have watched them, and can help sort out issues you have.