English Audio books

W

Wilfredo Vasquez

Legacy Member
Some people think that listening to audio books helps them to learn other languages, because through them, as well as getting familiar with some phrases, you also have the opportunity to listen to the speaker's pronunciation, the possible disadvantage of this method is the fact that it is not interactive.

Also, I personally consider that you have to have at least a grammatical base on the audiobook's indioma to be able to understand it basically.

What do you think about it?
 
I tried a bible story book app where they offer a audio books, all you need to do is to wear a headphones and just listen to it, and the app will read it for you. And it seems to be hard to understand specially when you want to get back to some lines that you don't understand well. But it is a great well specially to our brothers and sisters that is blind or having a hard time reading.
 
I agree that nothing can beat a face-to-face interactive session with a teacher who can test and give immediate feedback on your skills. However, I think it's audiobooks are good supplementary material for learning languages. It helps in pronunciation, diction, and sentence tone, plus it can be played anytime, anywhere as long as you have your gadget and earphones. You can also build your vocabulary through audiobooks which you can review as many times as you want for maximum retention.
 
Trying to get back to a thing previously said is one of the major problem I've encountered with audio books, but it can really be helpful.

Audio books can help you read more, in a shorter amount of time, that you'd have by reading; and if you can pay attention well enough, what you listened to will stick.

However, the nature of audio books —how flexible they are to use— encourage passivity. You can easily get distracted when listening to one, and because it is usually hard to go back to what was said, you may decide to not try to, thereby missingvut it all.

Audio books is most helpful when we use it with the equal concentration we use when reading, otherwise we might learn nothing.
 
I have a few years of "experience" in listening to audiobooks - I say "experience" because I'm a visually-dominant learner and I had to train my brain to actually listen to and understand audiobooks.

After so many audiobooks, I realized that my language skills have improved. Now, I am able to focus on the narration much easier. I also learned a lot about accents. In addition, my pronunciation is much better now and my vocabulary is incredibly rich. Listening to audiobooks also helped me write texts that flow naturally.

I've also realized that pairing audiobooks with another hobby makes it easier to concentrate on the plot. For example, I knit or paint while listening to a book. This way, I keep both my hands and brain busy, and it feels like I'm watching a movie.

At the moment, I'm listening to David Copperfield, and it's been an amazing experience, probably even better than if I read the physical book.

I also listened to Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier and Eugenie Grandet by Honore de Balzac in March. The latter was a true delight! It felt like watching it on stage!

Not all books go well as audiobooks though. It all depends on the narration, writing style, and genre.
 
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