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List of free, legal audiobooks sites | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes |  | |
| Volte Tetraglot Senior Member Switzerland Joined 6436 days ago 4474 posts - 6726 votes  Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese | Message 1 of 245 27 June 2007 at 5:52pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Inspired by siomotteikiru's audiobook method, I thought it would be a good idea to make a list of legal places to get free audio books in various languages. Ideally, these sites will contain actual books, in audio format, unabridged, not just poetry, podcasts (unless the podcast consists of reading literature), or really short (< 20 page) stories. For other types of material, check the list of resources list.
Here's a list, in alphabetical order. This list is collaborative; as people find more sites, links are added. Currently requested languages that no sites have been found for: Korean, Farsi, and Polish. Any help finding audiobook sites for these languages would be appreciated. (Bibles in each are available from 'Faith Comes By Hearing', mentioned below; more resources are very welcome). There are several sections. The first is "free, legal audiobook sites", which have several full-length audiobooks (or lists of links to several full-length audiobooks). There are then sections for "single novels", "religious sites", sites which almost meet the criteria (such as short literary podcasts for languages with few/no free audiobooks, such as Basque), "L-R oriented collections", and historical/broken/removed links. Finally, at the end, there are selected comments/comparisons/reviews. Here are the free, legal audiobook sites, in alphabetical order. Alba's Learning to Learn Languages audiolibros(luke)(Spanish/English). MP3, some PDFs. ALK audiolibri(MarcoDiAngelo)(Italian) Several Italian audiobooks, many of which are over 5 hours. Also available via mail. Arabic audio books(Doitsujin)(Arabic)
ashwanikapoor.com(aru-aru)(Hindi) 3 novels in Hindi, with text and audio. They don't appear to have been translated into other languages. audiobookz.ru(Darobat)(Russian) MP3. Over 3000 audiobooks. No length indications. Accompanying texts are sometimes on lib.ru and similar, according to Darobat. Audiocite.net(MarcoDiAngelo)(French) MP3s of classical literature, both original and translated, with length indications. Fantastic resource. See also Litterature Audio; OlafP recommends it over audiocite. (His full comment is reproduced at the bottom of this post). Автори(MarcoDiAngelo)(Bulgarian)
bauddha.net(sheetz)(Japanese)
Books should be free(BlondGirl)(multilingual). Most of the books are from librivox. ReneeMona points out that they have a Dutch section. CartiAudio.eu(MarcoDiAngelo)(Romanian) Chinese radio(aru-aru)(Chinese). His description: "This link here is a chinese radio station website. They have the recordings of the broadcasted book-reading shows or something, but as to all the practical purposes these are audiobooks, divided into 25 minute segments. They have 哈利波特与阿兹卡班的囚徒, 哈利波特与秘室 (chamber of secrets), 哈利波特与魔法石." Includes "Dream of the red Chamber." See aru-aru's post (page 2) for links to the text. Warning: JasonChoi says they aren't actually the same (page 3). Ejunto(http://www.e-book.com.au/freebooks.htm)(English). Philosophy and literature audiobooks. Most are quite long (the longest one, currently, is 9 hours, 44 minutes). Free books(omniglot.com)(Only English). MP3, no transcripts. Friends Forum(Mitko)(mostly Russian). Infanata(Lindley)(Russian)
Internet Archive(Various languages, including French). MP3 audiobooks in several languages. Japanese Classical Literature at Bedtime(furyou_gaijin)(Japanese). MP3, external links to transcripts. Japanese and translated-into-Japanese works. Excellent, and very well-read. Kealist's learning log(kealist)(Mandarin). Useful links for Mandarin L-R. Koetaba(sheetz)(Japanese). Quite a selection of audio ebooks, by Japanese and foreign authors. Not known if they're abridged or not. Format: ram. kokorojin.com(sheetz)(Japanese).
Leekescuchando(Lemus)(Spanish) Spanish and translated-to-Spanish works. It used to be MP3 format, length of track clearly displayed; now it uses some weird custom flash interface, which is a huge step in the wrong direction. Liberliber(shapd)(Italian). Several Italian audiobooks. A corresponding English/Italian parallel text for at least one work, "I promessi sposi", can be found at http://ercoleguidi.altervista.org/. Librivox(Reineke)(several languages). Librivox is heavily English-oriented; there are currently 981 'books' in English, while German comes in second at 32, and French third at 17. Reineke notes that it allows non-native speakers (unsurprising, given that it contains audio for Old English, Latin, and Church Slavonic!) ReneeMona points out their Dutch section.
literalsystems(omniglot.com)(English/Spanish) Very small collection of books; the page talks of having deleted about 40. MP3 and FLAC. Has some long works, including "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" and "Heart of Darkness". Litterature Audio(French). Currently has over 1000 audiobooks. MP3. LoudLit.org(Eve)(English). Several creative commons licensed audiobooks (mp3). It has some overlap with LibriVox. Luisterrijk(ReneeMona)(Dutch). Free downloads from a commercial audiobook site. lydbog.com(Fränzi)(Danish). MP3, "fairy-tales, short stories and full-sized novels". As of this writing, there are 3 novels of over an hour each (two 5 hour ones, and an 8 hour one - click "Romaner"), and a decent selection of shorter works. Magyar Elektronikus Könyvtár (MEK) / Hungarian Electronic Library(waremchan)(Hungarian) This site is sufficient reason to learn Hungarian; need I say more? It has a fantastic array of world classics, in Hungarian. pingshu8(kealist)(Mandarin Chinese). A range of audiobooks, most at 32kb/second, a few at higher or lower bitrates. Podiobooks(English). Full length novels as serialized audioboks. MP3. Project Gutenberg(several languages). Heavily English, but there are some German entries, and a few in Russian, Latin, French, Finnish, etc. Radio France Archives(breckes)(French). Real player format. Radioboeken(Lillyflea)(Dutch)
Radio College Park(24karrot)(Persian). Small but nice collection of Persian audiobooks. MP3 format, time listed. Has anyone found English translations of the books? RAI: Fantasticamente(ziedariana)(Italian). More audiobooks from RAI1. RAI: Il Terzo Anello(frenkeld)(Italian). Current work available as MP3; RAM archives. Russian Authors (Sussex university)(CaitO'Ceallaigh)(Russian). Works by Russian authors, with translations and audio. It looks promising, but I can't use the audio in my browser - hopefully others can. Sheetz's learning log(Japanese). The best list of Japanese audiobook resources I am aware of, by far. Theateraufcd(Reineke) (German). ThoughtAudio(Lemus)(English). A moderately sized selection of audiobooks in English. Includes "Metamorphosis" by Kafka and "Call of the Wild". MP3. Ukrainian Literary Audio Resources(Chung)(Ukranian)
Verbum Library Audiobook Collection(Bulgarian). A large number of audiobooks in Bulgarian. Primarily religious. Recent additions are listed at http://evtimii.blogspot.com/. Audio formerly at http://bulgarian-orthodox-church.org/audiobooks/index.htm and blog formerly at http://pravoslavie.blogspot.com/ . Vorleser (Reineke)(German). ~550 audio books, in German, at 'cd quality' in mp3 format. Some tracks are accompanied by texts (hosted on Project Gutenberg) and length indications, some aren't. Single novels Amuddu n-Umsiggel(Berber, Tashelhit dialect)(HTale)
Dante Project(Italian)(tmesis). Dante's works, in Italian, English, or both (parallel text), with audio in both English and Italian. Don Quijote de la Mancha(Spanish)(atamagaii). Cervantes' classical work, "Don Quijote de la Mancha", as streaming ASX files. I recommend getting it in MP3 format from EducAragón ::: Departamento de Educación, Cultura y Deporte. Gobierno de Aragón instead. Gerda Malaperis(Esperanto). This has the full text and recordings of "Gerda Malaperis", a novel originally in Esperanto, by Claude Piron, aimed at beginners. The language gradually gets more complex throughout the novel. It now requires a (free) lernu account to access. Pinocchio(MarcoDiAngelo)(Italian) Pinocchio in MP3 format, read by Silvia Cecchini. Romance of the Three Kingdoms(AniaR)(Thai). An epic Chinese tale, in Thai translation. Seitsemän veljestä (Seven brothers) by Aleksis Kivi(Finnish)(Serpent). Corresponding text is available here. Recordings of this have previously been available at two other sites which have since gone dead, including http://www.yle.fi/multifoorumi/multiradio/zgo.php?z=20031221 153363875071&g=7 . The current URL hasn't been vouched for by Serpent. Sites which focus on particular religious works, in one or many languages Audio treasure(sheetz)(several languages). MP3, biblical. Several languages only have part of the Bible, such as the New Testament or a particular Gospel. Parallel texts for the bible can be found at ethnicharvest.org. Faith comes by hearing (hundreds of languages/very multilingual) Read Professor Arguelles' thread about 'faith comes by hearing'. This is an amazing resource for languages which have incredibly little material or are hard to find audiobooks for. If you're looking for Greek, Arabic, Kiswahili, Hausa, Korean, Igbo, Igo, Digo, Georgian, Uzbek, several Aztec languages, or something even more exotic, you may well find it here. GitaMrta. Full audio of the Bhagavad-Gita, in English, French, Gujarati, Hindi, Sanskrit, and Spanish. Greek/Latin New Testament Audio Readings(JasonChoi)(Greek, Latin, Hebrew). Texts linked to from latinvulgate.com and greeklatinaudio.com. Jehovah's Witnesses(AniaR)(Multilingual/several languages)
Mechon-Mamre(http://www.e-book.com.au/freebooks.htm)(Hebrew) MP3s of the entire Hebrew bible. Text is linked to at http://www.mechon-mamre.org/; there are pre-prepared English/Hebrew texts. madressa.net (http://www.e-book.com.au/freebooks.htm)(Arabic) The Quran, in mp3 format - formerly at http://www.madressa.net/CMS/content/view/41/4/ , but now moved. http://www.yildun.com/qsound.html links to several alternative recordings. Vaisnava.cz - The Hare Krisna Inspiration(tmesis)(Sanskrit). Bhagavad-gita chanting, with light music in the background; MP3. Corresponding parallel text available at http://sanskrit.safire.com/pdf/GITAMMY.PDF Wordproject(Alfonso)(multilingual) contains the Bible (both audio and script) in: Portuguese, Spanish, French, Russian, Italian, and Mandarin (traditional, simplified, and romanized). Sites which are useful, but don't quite meet the above criteria AudioBooksForFree.com(siomotteikiru)(English). Free, but with some heavy restrictions (the books are available at 5 bitrates, and only 8kB/second is free for most, which is very low; higher bitrates require paying, and even at 8kB/second, it requires signing up). I've downloaded one of the audiobooks available free at 16kB/second, and the artifacts from too much compression are fairly noticeable. audiolibri.it(MarcoDiAngelo)(Italian) A few audio books, relatively short, 24kb/second. The longest are barely over an hour. az.lib.ru(CaitO'Ceallaigh)(Russian) A large collection of public domain Russian classics, in Russian, with some translations into English. Esperanto audio(Esperanto). These are far too short, and far too few, but I have not yet found a better place for Esperanto audio with accompanying text. License unknown. Everytongue.com(hundreds of languages)(Serpent). A religious site with short recordings in a dazzling variety of languages. kuwang.com(kealist)(Chinese). No audiobooks, but Chinese translations of foreign literature. Le Webcast littéraire(linqvist)(French). I've put this in this category, because the website requires Flash 9 and Javascript, so I cannot view it or categorize it better; hopefully it will be of use to someone. Logos Library(jeff_lindqvist)(a few dozen languages). Not audio-book oriented, but has sound clips for many of the languages, especially the larger ones, including Swedish. Norwegian - Listening and Reading sites(Norwegian). This isn't LR-oriented, but does have links to Norwegian texts and spoken mp3s. Pako's podcast(Basque) A few Basque audiobooks. The longer ones appear to have never been translated to any other languages, unfortunately. Pasakas(aru-aru)(Latvian) "Free and legal latvian audiobooks. Shorter stories (pasakas) have the text as well." Progettobabele(Italian) Contemporary Italian audio books, but without transcripts; picking one at random, I was unable to find the corresponding text via google. Fairly short, and under copyright; not redistributable, personal use only. Society for the Oral Reading of Greek and Latin Literature (SORGLL)(Ocius)(Latin, Ancient Greek). This site has readings of Latin and Ancient Greek literature in restored pronunciation. They're rather short, rather than audiobook length, hence putting it in this section. The audio player built into the site doesn't work for me - but you can change the last section of the URL to playlist.xml to find where the mp3 of the recording is. Susa - audioa(Basque). A variety of poems in Basque, in RAM and mp3 formats. Textes audio - Bonnes Nouvelles : espace littéraire audio(linqvist)(French) Some short recordings in French. MP3. Voorlezer(anonymous on behalf of the communist party)(Dutch). A number of ebooks are available gratis (0 euros), but, as far as I can tell, only to people who have accounts. woyouxian.com.(kealist)(Chinese). This site does not have audiobooks, but it has texts in both Chinese and English.
L-R oriented collections Japanese:
Broken sites, listed in the hope that people can find mirrors, replacements, etc: audiobooks.ulitka.com(Russian). A very large collection of audiobooks, both of Russian works and of foreign ones translated into Russian. MP3. Claims to only be down temporarily. http://www.bibvirt.futuro.usp.br/index.php/sons/livros_falad os/por_titulo - BibVert (FSI)(Portuguese). It originally had 35 recorded novels with text, as well as a few poems, short stories, and plays, in RealMedia format. The audio links were later broken, and now the whole site is down for maintenance. Are there any working mirrors or working alternatives? http://www.fillipmoberg.no/c100245/sammendrag/vis.html?tid=1 00465 - DE LEVENDE OG DE DØDE(Norwegian). MP3 podcast of a book of the above title. The "Last Ned" of the links means "download" (thanks to Kveldulv for the explanation). Unfortunately, the domain seems to have disappeared. http://www.podcast1.com.br/canais/canal2142/ (aru-aru)(Portuguese). Serialized audiobooks as MP3s - now gone. "The Little Prince" has been done, and a second novel is being added. The above URL points to a directory listing, as the more obvious and user-friendly page seems to only list the most recent chapters. Corresponding texts for "The Little Prince" were at http://www.triplov.org/walkyria/saint_exupery/capitulo1.html and http://home.kc.rr.com/slyon/por.html - but have disappeared. Kaballah(Turkish). This is a broken link to a religious work; the site seems to have been rearranged. There was also an audiobook in English; I don't know if it corresponds. The site is also in quite a few other languages; as of the last time I checked, Japanese and Italian do not have audiobooks. Whether other languages do, or whether the site still does at all, is unknown. http://www.projetopdl.cjb.net/ - Projeto Democratização da Leitura - (siomotteikiru)(Portuguese). Links to various audiobooks in Portuguese. First some of the links were broken, and now it's all "under maintenance". http://www.geocities.com/sonlibro/ - Projekto de sonlibroj en Esperanto (ProSE) - (Esperanto). This had a few short recordings, although it seems to have ambitious plans to add quite a lot more. It seems to have died when geocities did, unfortunately. SESLÝ KÝTAPLAR(alexptrans)(Turkish). A variety of audiobooks, in MP3 format, mainly translations. The site seems to have been rearranged - perhaps a Turkish speaker could figure out if the audiobooks are still there? Hindi Mini-collection
Former Mini-collection I'm leaving this intact in case in can be helpful to someone, but the audio links are now broken.
Non-free sites (now also broken/missing) http://www1.oxedion.com/index.php/download/97cfa5fa075978d73 0f33714586464c1 - Oxedion Virtual Directories.(alexptrans)(Hungarian) Over 600 Hungarian Audiobooks. Displayed all the filenames, but required logging in with an account (which isn't free) to actually download anything. Removed sites http://www.godteposen.no/godteposen_gratis_lydbok_lest_.html - Martin Nygaarg (Norwegian). It used to have variety of short mp3 'audiobooks' (around 3-10 minutes). The domain is still up and selling books, with some free extracts, but the above link is dead. Selected comments/reviews This section is for useful information which I worry would otherwise drown in this thread, but which is too large to inline above.
Edited by Volte on 31 August 2010 at 3:19pm 73 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| sheetz Senior Member United States Joined 6374 days ago 270 posts - 356 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, French, Mandarin | Message 2 of 245 27 June 2007 at 9:27pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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This site has a number of Japanese audiobooks by both Japanese as well as foreign authors, but I don't know if they are unabridged. Among the foreign authors I recognize are: Oscar Wilde, O Henry, Hans Christian Andersen, and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
http://www.koetaba.net/3book/index.html edit: It occurred to me that members of this forum could also collaborate to create transcripts for all these audiobooks. If individuals would volunteer to transcribe one chapter in their native language per month, we could probably go through all of them in no time at all. Edited by sheetz on 27 June 2007 at 10:03pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Volte Tetraglot Senior Member Switzerland Joined 6436 days ago 4474 posts - 6726 votes Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese | Message 3 of 245 27 June 2007 at 11:28pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
As long as copyright allows, and there aren't already good transcripts (available at least as freely as the audiobooks), that sounds great. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Lemus Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6378 days ago 232 posts - 266 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Japanese, Russian, German | Message 4 of 245 28 June 2007 at 11:52am | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Leerescuchando
Spanish site with origianl Spanish books and translations of classic English books. 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Darobat Diglot Senior Member Joined 7185 days ago 754 posts - 770 votes Speaks: English*, Russian Studies: Latin | Message 5 of 245 28 June 2007 at 12:01pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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www.audiobookz.ru
A Russian audio book site with a bunch of free audio books. You can get most of the texts off sites such as lib.ru or similar sites. 5 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| LilleOSC Senior Member United States lille.theoffside.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6688 days ago 545 posts - 546 votes 4 sounds Speaks: English* Studies: French, Arabic (Written) | Message 6 of 245 28 June 2007 at 12:12pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Great idea, Volte.
3 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Volte Tetraglot Senior Member Switzerland Joined 6436 days ago 4474 posts - 6726 votes Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese | Message 7 of 245 28 June 2007 at 12:17pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Thanks! That said, I think siomotteikiru deserves a lot of the credit. I wouldn't even be thinking about audio books without her great posts on how to use them effectively. 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| frenkeld Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6940 days ago 2042 posts - 2719 votes Speaks: Russian*, English Studies: German | Message 8 of 245 28 June 2007 at 1:31pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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For Italian, RAI has a few audiobooks. At RAI site, you need RAI->Radio3->Il Terzo Anello->Ad Alta Voce
The current link is this one. At the bottom of this page you can see the archive, which is being reorganized right now - I recall a few titles that are not there now. Some works are unabridged (Pinocchio), some are abridged. You can get mp3 recordings via RAI podcast for the currently read work, but the archive is in ram, although it is still usable. Edited by frenkeld on 28 June 2007 at 1:32pm 3 persons have voted this message useful |
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