We have previously talked about how you can develop listening skill: by listening to English-language radio, visiting conversation clubs or watching films and TV series in English. Audiobooks also help improve English listening comprehension, and we’ll talk about them today.
Audiobooks in English have a number of advantages that even the most ardent fans of printed publications cannot ignore.
Firstly, An audiobook develops the skill of perceiving English-language information by ear, whereas when reading a regular book, you only remember the alphabetic spelling of words.
Secondly, You can listen to an audiobook in a situation where it is inconvenient for you to read: in transport, doing housework, while walking, etc.
Third, An audiobook allows you to relieve stress from your visual organs. If you often sit at the computer, then it is better to protect your eyesight and listen to some books rather than read.
Fourthly, good audiobooks are recorded by professional actors, which means you can be absolutely sure of the quality of pronunciation and clarity of speech.
Disadvantages of audiobooks in English
Audiobooks form only one skill: listening to English-language information. That is why completely replace printed publications they won't be able to. Regular books allow you to memorize the letter spelling of words. When listening to an audiobook, you will have to adjust to its pace. When reading an ordinary book, you skim or skim through some points, and re-read some paragraphs several times. When listening to an audiobook, you won't have this option. Of course, you can listen to a certain passage again, but the choice of reading pace remains with the creators of the book. In addition, some people do not perceive audiobooks on a subconscious level:“I don’t like audiobooks: my inner voice I get mad when it’s not him who reads books to me.”
How to choose the right audiobook?
Before downloading an audiobook in English, determine which one you need. The choice will depend not only on your literary preferences, but also on your level of English, as well as on the goals you want to achieve when listening to the work.
You can download audiobooks in English for beginners. If your level of English is not higher than Pre-Intermediate, it is better to start listening short stories and history. In addition, you can download audiobooks in English with translation into Russian. This method will allow you to replenish your vocabulary with new words. If you love fairy tales, we can recommend you to download children's books in English.
If you are not confident in your ability to easily perceive English speech by ear, you should not start listening to books in English with classical works: you can download adapted audiobooks in English. Another interesting option for learning English with audiobooks: download audiobooks in English with text. By simultaneously reading and listening to an audiobook, you intuitively connect the lettering of words with their pronunciation, memorize new words, and train reading, listening, and writing skills.
You can also select a book by category:
- fiction or non-fiction
- narrator: woman or man
- American or British version English
- adapted or unadapted literature
Where can I download audiobooks in English?
We offer the TOP 6 best sites through which you can download audiobooks in English absolutely free. If you are interested in questions about where to download audiobooks in English in mp3, where to find audiobooks in English for Android, how to download audiobooks in English for iPhone, you will find the answers on the suggested portals.
We wish you success in learning the language!
Reading – essential skill knowledge of a foreign language, since its development helps to simultaneously improve writing, speaking, and listening. That is, working on it allows you to close several goals at once. But what to do if your linguistic base is not yet enough to read or listen original literature? Here adapted audiobooks in English will come to your aid. Next, we will tell you what the advantages of this training format are, what audio materials should be chosen for a particular level - from beginner to higher, and we will also offer a lot interesting stories recommended for study.
What are the benefits of adapted audiobooks?
- improve your reading skills;
- practice pronunciation;
- learn new ones grammatical structures and structures;
- increase your vocabulary, supplementing it with frequently used words on different topics;
- immerse yourself in the exciting world of new stories.
In the library you can find not only audiobooks in English for beginners, but also stories for elementary, intermediate and even advanced levels. Classic and modern, fiction and documentary - you can choose a piece to suit your taste.
Move step by step and each new level will bring you new results:
- – 250 words
- – 400 words
- – 700 words
- – 1000 words
- – 1400 words
- – 1800 words
- – 2500 words
Here are the best adapted stories by level, which we recommend using in training:
A1: Starter (for beginners):
- Police TV
- Red roses
A1-A2: Beginner:
- Sherlock Holmes and the Sport of Kings (Sherlock Holmes and the sport of kings)
- Love or Money? (Love or money?)
- London
A2-B1: Elementary:
- Robinson Crusoe
- Anne of green gables
- Voodoo island
- The eyes of Montezuma
B1: Pre-Intermediate:
- Love story
- The Picture of Dorian Gray
B1-B2: Intermediate:
B2: Upper-Intermediate:
B2-C1: Advanced:
How to work with adapted audiobooks?
To achieve serious success in learning a language using adapted audiobooks, beginning students should adhere to some simple rules:
- 1. Write unfamiliar vocabulary into the dictionary.
- 2. Study the features of the construction and use of grammatical structures.
- 3. Read the texts out loud and repeat the words after the speaker.
- 4. Use an English-Russian dictionary.
- 5. Study with audio materials daily for 20-30 minutes.
So, do you want to reach a new level in the development of your language? Then you definitely need to listen to audiobooks in English - they will help you achieve any linguistic peaks in an interesting format!
The most powerful god Helios triumphs - he has a daughter. But the girl is not growing up as powerful and self-confident as her father would like her to be. She could be like her mother, possessing an attractive, alluring appearance. But these traits are not observed in her either. It turns out that she has a different power - the power of witchcraft. Both gods and mortals can be in her power, because she has the power to turn her rivals into monsters, threatening the entire world on earth and in heaven.
Pete Banning is trying to run his own household. But it is extremely difficult for him to do this, because he owns 640 acres of land on which cotton grows. The wife is in psychiatric hospital, children are in college. Pete feels unbearably sad. One morning he wakes up with the thought that the day has come for murder. He does all his household chores, takes a gun and goes to Pastor Bell. He exclaims: "If we're talking about about Lisa, I can explain." Pete kills the pastor
A holiday in a sanatorium will help change your whole life – that was the conviction with which I went on holiday main character Francis Welty. The writer, whose romantic works made her successful and one of the most sought-after writers, is experiencing a decline in her creative and personal life. WITH broken hearted and poor health is not particularly thought about career growth. Need rest. Nine more people arrived here. Some are puzzled by the issue of losing weight, others want to reboot their lives and
Laurel is concerned about her daughter's future. Among the three children, she especially singles out Ellie. A girl is the only joy in a woman’s life; she feeds her mother with a feeling of happiness and spiritual harmony. But then one day the girl suddenly disappears somewhere. A grieving woman is waiting to meet her daughter, she has been yearning and sad for years, not knowing how to quench heartache. The relationship with her husband, year after year, day after day, imperceptibly turned into dust, she did not particularly care about her two older children, which she does not regret, her
James Holde is old and tired, because thirty years have passed since the Earth was destroyed. He intends to retire. Bobby Draper, a former Marine, becomes captain. He has not yet realized the scale of the responsibility that falls on his shoulders. After all, we can’t talk about safety. Former head security takes control of everything transport system 1300 planets, becoming the most powerful person. Who will save fragile world, in which new ones live
The events of the previous book ended with the arbitrariness of the military, who spontaneously declared themselves navy, designed to restore order in the solar system. But humanity has doubts about the true intentions of the warriors, who, by the way, use stolen warships and behave openly impudently and brazenly. After attacking Earth and the Martian fleet, the impostors decided to attack and capture the colonized ships that were heading to the portal gate.
The fifth book opens the curtain behind which thousands are hidden unknown worlds, which are a tiny part infinite universe. The heroes dubbed the massive flow of earthlings to their new place of residence Earth fever. This is happening for the first time in human history. But there is no other way out, because the native lands are smoldering under the influence terrible virus. Colonists are leaving the solar system en masse, causing outrage among security forces and officials monitoring the leakage of people. Shuttlecock for
Holden and his team investigated the gate and realized that it served as a portal to another place. space, which is full of habitable land. Humanity is now in danger of extinction on inhabited planets solar system, therefore, having learned about the existence of fertile lands, people move en masse. The United Nations is concerned massive influx migrants. The management of the company, which has officially reserved the rights to
James Holden and his team of specialists, scientists and military personnel are preparing their ships to depart beyond the mini-solar system represented by Mars, the Moon and the asteroid belt. They are flying to study an alien artifact made over several months, which is located in the orbit of Uranus. An artifact created according to innovative space technologies, unknown human race, is a huge gate that the aliens built to enter
A year and a half has passed since latest events. The balance collapses when the super soldiers begin to kill the Martian team Marines. This is the order of a top-ranking politician who is directing a bloody special operation from Earth, with the goal of starting a war between the planets. At the same time, the inhabitants of Venus observe global changes on the planet. It turns out that someone launched an alien protomolecule, which spreads with enormous speed bringing death
The inhabitants of the Earth have settled throughout the Universe, colonizing Mars, the Moon and other habitable places, but humanity still cannot reach the stars; they are out of reach. Ice miner-in-chief Jim Holden and his crew travel across Saturn towards its mountain stations and encounter an abandoned ship. Jim is trying to find out who left the ship and why. Unknown persons do not want uninvited guests to reveal the secret,
Ralph Anderson rushes to arrest teacher and little league baseball coach Terry Maitland, accusing him of raping and murdering an 11-year-old boy. And he does this in front of the crowd, provoking the generation of numerous gossip and rumors in all corners of the city. People thirsty for retribution do not want to listen to Maitland's arguments about his innocence. He asks attorney Howie Gold to defend his interests, despite the fact that Detective Anderson has clear evidence pointing to the fact
Nona Gray completely settled in and became involved in the life of the monastery and its inhabitants. Understanding the deep truths of the Universe prevents her from thinking straight. Time is running out, but she can’t decide what she wants most, who she wants to become, and what kind of life to live. She could well become an empress, but her ambitions should be tamed and a competent plan of action drawn up. Enemies are waiting. The girl has to do life choice before she leaves the walls of her refuge.
The monastery, where young diligent girls are brought up, only in appearance seems to be an abode of peace and tranquility. In fact, this is a place where future killers are trained. Young beauties are called to become warriors, in whose hands are the lives of dozens of victims. Abbess Glass prepares newcomers, teaches them mastery of the blade and hand-to-hand combat. And each pupil will need ten years to reach the target and become a fearless killing machine. Once upon a time in a monastery
The heroes of the book are young, ambitious and energetic people. She is a careerist, an artist, determined to achieve success in all creative endeavors. He is a young boss, intelligent, smart, although he achieved success thanks to his father's support. They seemed to be ideal for each other, people of high society, wealthy and self-confident. Celestian complements Roy, she looks like the epitome ideal woman for the man of dreams. Roy sees his
Quiet city, which is located in the vastness of North Carolina, has ceased to please the eye with its beauties local residents, when they learned about the death of a local handsome man. Everyone began to discuss and speculate about the identity of the potential killer. And soon they found the last one. Q Clarke found herself at the epicenter of turbulent events associated with the death of a boy who was popular with fair half. Why Q? For many years she disappeared from the city. As it turned out, she lived in the swamps,
The day has arrived for Luke and Coral's coronation. By getting married, they committed to continue the story great dynasty and rule as king and queen great empire. Merlin, a representative of the Amber court, also arrived on an unofficial visit to the celebration. He becomes aware that the ranks of contenders for the royal throne of the Chaos Palace are rapidly thinning. Rumor has it that he himself has supporters who want to see Merlin on the throne. But this topic does not interest him. He's busy searching
Merlin, not wanting to be confused by guesses regarding the previous events of his life, tries to make a chain days gone by and compare, like a puzzle, the multiple situations in which Luke, Julia and Victor were involved. Jasra does not hide the fact that she intended to destroy the hero. Moreover, she repeated the attempt every year on the same day. Merlin wants to meet with Coral, but this is impossible, because by the will of the Labyrinth the character ended up in an unknown point. Merlin is transported to a wonderful
Apparently, Merlin will have to go through the same difficult path that his father took long ago. But in this book you need to fight not only evil, but also the hallucinations of your own friend, which have materialized into reality. Main character understands that he is in a place far from reality. This is a bar somewhere in Wonderland, inhabited by strange creatures. His friend Luke overdid it with LSD, and having power over the Reflection, he unwittingly threw them into this wonderful and at the same time dangerous world. Behind
The endless twists and turns between the characters of the fantasy novel in this part turn against the son of the famous Amber prince. Merlin finds himself at the epicenter of events, confronting the forces of evil. Jasra opposes him in every possible way. She managed to lure the hero into a room enchanted by enchantments, where he is unable to prevent the action of dark spells, he cannot use his powers to get out of the trap, he is exhausted, but is determined to find himself behind at any cost.
The Kingdom of Amber lost its, perhaps, most wise and decent ruler, who had the interests of the magical state on his mind, and not at all his own ambitions. And no matter how hard Oberon tried to transfer the rights to the throne to his faithful warrior and part-time son Corwin, the second never sat on the royal throne. Or maybe that's for the best. The Kingdom of the Domain of Chaos ceased to be a hostile state for Amber, the war was over. Damaged
An important conversation is taking place in the Amber kingdom. Dara and Benedict have a one-on-one conversation, protected from strangers by a temporary barrier. But the courtiers see a spirit wandering in the dungeons, which for unknown reasons is among the interlocutors. The ghost wounds Benedict and disappears. Begins military operation on confronting the Courts of Chaos. The current king deliberately goes to his death so that his son becomes the head of the kingdom, but Corwin does not want to sit on the throne and,
Random managed to hide the fact of his paternity from his relatives. His son Martin is already an adult. In the past, Brand injured a boy, and this is what created the Black Road and a malfunction in the Labyrinth. Corwin went to Earth in an attempt to repair the Labyrinth. While searching for a magic stone, he meets Brand, who has taken the miracle stone for himself. The man finds himself at the Court of Chaos, where the Black Road has also formed. On the way, he meets a man who draws attention to Corwin's sword. It will become clear later
Corwin is at home. And it was not of his own free will that he returned home. But the events preceding his return to Amber sadden the hero. Someone arranged a meeting for him in a forest grove, but instead of a mysterious interlocutor, Corwin found a dead Kane and a hiding thug-killer who took the life of the unfortunate Kane. Corwin kills him and rushes to Random. Earlier, someone chained Brand in a mysterious castle. Random learned about this from visions and rushed to help. But as a result of injury I am forced
Babeleo Books – audiobooks with text in English and Russian
If you want to listen to audiobooks in English, you're in for a tough challenge. Unlike, where a lot can be understood by gestures and facial expressions, in audiobooks everything must be perceived by ear. In addition, books are not so easy to find, because there are a lot of sites with audiobooks. From this review you will learn about the most, in my opinion, interesting sites with audiobooks.
Is it worth listening to audiobooks in English?
Audiobooks are not the easiest or most accessible way to listen. The difficulties associated with them are:
- Text is much more complex than our everyday chatter. If in colloquial speech 2000 - 3000 words are used, then in books - 5000 - 12000 words.
- The books are narrated for listeners, so the pace of speech may be too fast.
I will highlight the advantages:
- Audiobooks are good way improve listening comprehension skills. The main thing is that the book is interesting to you.
- Reading a book and listening to it are completely different “experiences”. In essence, an audiobook is something like a play, a radio drama.
In general, it makes sense to listen to an audiobook in English if it is interesting to you and understandable enough.
Where can I find audiobooks in English?
In my opinion, this is the best site with audiobooks in English. Access to books is paid, but costs a symbolic 200 - 300 rubles. per month, and the opportunities open up very interesting:
- Each book is presented in the form parallel texts in English and Russian (only English is possible) and is equipped with one or more audio versions.
- By clicking on a word in the text, you can see the translation and listen to the pronunciation.
- You can slow down or speed up the audio playback speed.
- The library has few books, about 50, but the selection of works is of very high quality.
The library has books such as “1984”, “The Hunger Games”, “Fight Club”, “ White Fang", "Harry Potter and Philosopher's Stone”, “The Catcher in the Rye”, “Martin Eden” and other classic and modern works. Books, unfortunately, cannot be downloaded. In general, the service is designed more for reading, rather than listening to books.
2. Librivox – free audiobooks in English and other languages in MP3 format
If you are looking for a site with big amount a variety of audiobooks on foreign languages(not only in English), you can safely stop at librivox.org and stop searching. Librivox's mission is to make “all public domain books available for free in audio format via the Internet.” Public domain refers to books that are not protected by copyright, so you won't find the latest bestsellers here, but books are known to have a very long lifespan.
Books by D. London, one of my favorite authors, belong to the public domain
Main features of the site:
- Books are available not only in English, but also in other languages. Mainly in German, French, Spanish, Italian, Chinese.
- Any book can be downloaded as an archive of MP3 files - each chapter in a separate file
- The site has more than 21,000 audiobooks in English.
- Unfortunately, audiobooks do not come with text.
3. Librophile – free e-books and audiobooks in English
Librophile.com is a collection site where you can find:
- Free e-books(text) – they are taken from free library Gutengberg, a repository of out-of-copyright books.
- Free audiobooks – taken from the aforementioned Librivox.
- Paid audiobooks – links lead to the Audible store (more about it below)
The book can be listened to, downloaded and opened in the Gutenberg library
In general, this site is secondary to Librivox, Gutenberg and Audible, but I decided to mention it for the following reasons:
- Librivox conveniently contains audio and text books.
- Audiobooks have a link to the text version (on Gutenberg). This is convenient if you want to download both an audio file and text to listen and read.
4. Audible – paid audiobook store
It’s simply impossible not to mention audible.com in this review. Audible is the Amazon of audiobooks, making it one of the largest audiobook stores. If some new product or bestseller is released in audio format, it will definitely be on Audible.
The only problem is the price of the books - somewhere around $20 - $30 or $15 for one book with a monthly subscription. On the site you can get one book for free, but you will immediately be asked to enter your card details, and after 30 days, if you do not cancel your subscription, $15 will be charged for renewing your subscription.
Choose an accent: British or American
Adapted audiobooks divided into British and American. You need to decide in advance what kind of accent you want to develop. Clear, beautiful pronunciation is respect for the language and the interlocutor.Below are two audio files to help you make your choice.
| British accent | American accent |
Choose the one that is closer to your soul. Don't be afraid to relearn from one accent to another - it won't take long.
By the way, professional Western actors are fluent in both British and American pronunciation. If you dream of conquering Hollywood, develop both. :)
Select a level: from Beginner to Advanced
Adapted audiobooks on English language differentiated by levels. There are six of them:
- Beginner (Initial 1)
- Elementary (Beginner 2)
- Pre-intermediate (Below average)
- Intermediate
- Upper Intermediate
- Advanced
How to work with an adapted audiobook
The audiobook includes:
- Text version of the book. Usually in PDF format
- Audio version of the book. Usually in MP3 format
The main thing is not to overtake the announcer. He is the leader, you are the follower. You read after him.
By working according to this scheme, you are working on three of the four main skills:
- Speaking
- Listening speech perception (Listening)
- Reading
Additional recommendations: 
- We recommend that you first read the original book in Russian. This will help you understand the plot more deeply. Then work with English version it will be much easier
- Exercise daily, 30-40 minutes each. If it doesn't seem enough - increase the time, but without sacrificing pleasure
- Periodically return to audiobooks that you especially liked