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Exactly-parallel audiobooks/books

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tommus
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 Message 1 of 12
13 December 2010 at 9:47pm | IP Logged 
Many people on HTLAL seem to find parallel audio and text to be a particularly powerful language learning resource. I certainly do. One of the most readily available and free resources is Librivox. Another source is current audiobooks of current and popular novels and series, such as Harry Potter, plus mystery, adventure, crime, etc. The problem seems to be that many of these audiobooks are abridged from the text version of the book and are, of course, no longer parallel. I think it would be useful to have a thread here listing known exactly-parallel audiobook/book pairs. That would generally mean that you have such a pair and know for sure that it is parallel. You could also note if an exactly parallel text is available in another language. I will offer the two Dutch ones that I know about. It just happens that the audio is free on the Internet, read by the authors.

Dutch.

Book: "Han de Wit gaat in ontwikkelingshulp" by Heere Heeresma.
Audio: http://boeken.vpro.nl/artikelen/27520638/
Other language parallel book: I don't know.

Book: "Gevaarlijke Stroom" by Hans Dorrestijn
Audio: http://boeken.vpro.nl/artikelen/21181103/
Other language parallel book: I don't know.

There are quite a few similar Dutch audiobooks read mostly by their authors, on the web page below. However, I do not have the paper version of the books so I cannot confirm that the audio is unabridged, but it probably is. If anyone can confirm any of those, I'd appreciate it.

http://boeken.vpro.nl/dossiers/17468829/

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Tiktok
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 Message 2 of 12
31 December 2010 at 11:47pm | IP Logged 
After a long time searching, I found the following version of 1984 in Estonian. The audio matches the text source 99,9% of the time (one or two sentences have words rearranged).

Audio : http://nommeraadio.ee/meediapank.php?cat=1984

Book text : http://orwell.ru/library/novels/1984/estonian/

N.B. The audio includes the preface of the printed book which isn't included in the book text link above - the audio matches the linked text from 6:29 onwards in the first audio part.

As an aside, the Nõmme Radio site includes an extensive collection of audio books which may be useful if anyone else is looking for Estonian sources.
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thistledown
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 Message 3 of 12
01 January 2011 at 3:59pm | IP Logged 
I can confirm that De Hobbit audio book read by Jan Meng http://www.luisterboekonline.nl/productinfo.php?isbn=9789052 860015&category=28&genre=52&product=Luisterboek De Hobbit

and the book http://www.bol.com/nl/p/nederlandse-boeken/de-hobbit/1001004 006475060/index.html#product_overview

are parallel. There seems to be another version of the audio book read by Jeroen Willems which I'm not sure about.

Edited by thistledown on 01 January 2011 at 4:00pm

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tommus
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 Message 5 of 12
31 March 2012 at 5:40pm | IP Logged 
I am surprised that there wasn't more response to this thread which was initially started over a year ago.

There are lots of people on HTLAL talking about using parallel audio books and books. But almost nobody has taken the time to share the info with the Forum members. A number of people have been frustrated by getting an audio book and a book, and finding that they are very different and thus useless for parallel audio/text.

I am not talking about Librivox, etc.. They are excellent and parallel. But I am talking about currently-published books and their audio twin.

It would be very useful if people could share the exact info of which versions of audio books are exactly parallel with the printed book (or e-book).

I'm sure learners in all languages would appreciate knowing about any such pairs that you know are truly parallel. I certainly would. Thanks.


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Serpent
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 Message 6 of 12
31 March 2012 at 6:31pm | IP Logged 
Another topic to discuss is in which languages it's especially needed to be careful about this.
I don't suppose it's a problem in Finnish. I'm not aware of any not-matching audiobooks. I've only listened-read (both L2) to Da Vinci code and it matches perfectly.
It's been mentioned that it's a problem in Spanish, and I know it's a problem in Russian. Especially in the latter, this is compensated by lots and lots of free downloads.
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jeff_lindqvist
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 Message 7 of 12
31 March 2012 at 9:05pm | IP Logged 
I have yet to hear a German audiobook that matches the real book. Anything from a paragraph here and there up to whole chapters (!) are missing. Very annoying when the translation/original text is in front of you.
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tommus
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 Message 8 of 12
31 March 2012 at 10:53pm | IP Logged 
Serpent wrote:
I've only listened-read (both L2) to Da Vinci code and it matches perfectly.

I have the Dutch Da Vinci Code audiobook (6 CD-ROM abridged version) so I imagine there is no matching abridged paper book version. I don't know if there is an audio unabridged version in Dutch. Probably not.

So basically, in this thread, I guess it is a matter of finding confirmed unabridged audiobooks with a confirmed matching paper book. There must be many.






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