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!
A complete list of audiobooks in English that you can download or listen to online from the cloud, including books that are not recorded separately.
If you haven’t found any audiobook on our website, we may not have had time to add the cover and description yet, but you can already download it here.
You can download adapted audiobooks in English as audio recordings professional announcer(by a native speaker) and in the form of text in pdf or doc format, which is very convenient for serious and in-depth work with the selected work.
Level - Starter (the easiest audiobooks in English for beginners)
Level – Beginner
| Book title | Author | Availability of audio books |
|---|---|---|
| Jenny Dooley | + | |
| Tim Vicary | + | |
| Mark Twain | + | |
| Jennifer Bassett | + | |
| Rowena Akinyemi | + | |
| Dangerous Journey | Alwyn Cox | + |
| The Blue Diamond Sherlock Holmes | Arthur Conan Doyle | + |
| The House on the Hill | Elizabeth Laird | + |
| The Mill on the Floss | George Elliot | + |
| George Sees Stars | Dave Cooper | + |
| The watchers | Jennifer Bassett | + |
| One way Ticket Short Stories | Jennifer Bassett | + |
| Beauty and the Beast | Jenny Dooley | + |
| London | John Escott | + |
| Journey to the center of the Earth | Jules Vern | + |
| 20,000 Leagues under the Sea | Jules Verne | + |
| Battle of Newton Road | Leslie Dunkling | + |
| Little Women | Louisa M. Alcott | + |
| Locked Room | Peter Viney | + |
| A Song for Ben | Sandra Slater | + |
| Robin Hood | Stephen Colbourn | + |
| Rich Man, Poor Man | T.C. Jupp | + |
| The Elephant Man | Tim Vicary | + |
| The Wizard of Oz | Frank Baum | + |
| The Monkeys Paw | W. W. Jacobs | + |
Level Elementary
| Book title | Author | Availability of audio books |
|---|---|---|
| Arthur Conan Doyle | + | |
| H. G. Wells | + | |
| Robert Louis Stevenson | + | |
| Daniel Defoe | + | |
| Arthur Conan Doyle | + | |
| Conan Doyle Arthur | + | |
| Arthur Conan Doyle | + | |
| Oscar Wilde | + | |
| Mary Shelley | + | |
| Susan Hill | + | |
| The Collector | Peter Viney | + |
| Jane Eyre | C Bronte | + |
| Room 13 and other ghost stories | James M.R. | + |
| Anne of Green Gables | L.M.Montgomery | + |
| Logan's Choice | Richard MacAndrew | + |
| Mr Bean in Town | John Escot | + |
| Dawson's Creek Shifting into Overdrive | C. J. Anders | + |
| King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table | Deborah Tempest | + |
| Simply Suspense | Frank Stockton | + |
| Huckleberry Finn | Mark Twain | + |
| Swan Lake | Jenny Dooley | + |
| Dawson's Creek Major Meltdown | K S Rodriguez | + |
| Dawson's Creek Long Hot Summer | K. S. Rodriguez | + |
| Dawson's Creek The Beginning of Everything Else | Kevin Williamson | + |
| Adventures in Wonderland | Lewis Carroll | + |
| The Princess Diaries Book 2 | Meg Cabot | + |
| Voodoo Island | Michael Duckworth | + |
| Casualty | Peter Viney | + |
| Strawberry And The Sensations | Peter Viney | + |
| Underground | Peter Viney | + |
| Robinson Crusoe | Daniel Defoe | + |
| The Eyes of Montezuma | Stephen Rabley | + |
| The Visit | Tim Vicary | + |
| The Legends of Sleepy Hollow and Rip Van Winkle | Washington Irving | + |
Level - Pre-Intermediate (adapted audiobooks in English of average difficulty level)
| Book title | Author | Availability of audio books |
|---|---|---|
| Peter Viney | + | |
| Tim Vicary | + | |
| Jack London | + | |
| Charles Dickens | + | |
| Stephen Colbourn | + | |
| Philip Prowse | + | |
| Edgar Allan Poe | + | |
| Edgar Allan Poe | + | |
| Edgar Allan Poe | + | |
| Edgar Allan Poe | + | |
| African adventure | Margaret Iggulden | + |
| Jane Eyre | C.Bronte | + |
| How to be an alien | Mikes, George | + |
| Just Good Friends | Penny Hancock | + |
| The Prince and The Pauper | Twain, Mark | + |
| How I Met Myself | David A Hill | + |
| Tales of Mystery and Imagination | Edgar Allan Poe | + |
| Sense and Sensibility | Jane Austen | + |
| Milo | Jennifer Bassett | + |
| Excalibur | Jenny Dooley | + |
| The Blue Scarab | Jenny Dooley | + |
| Love Story | Erich Segal | + |
| An Ideal Husband | Oscar Wilde | + |
| The Canterville Ghost | Oscar Wilde | + |
| The Picture of Dorian Gray | Oscar Wilde | + |
| The Young King and Other Stories | Oscar Wilde | + |
| The Beatles | Paul Shipton | + |
| Sherlock Holmes Investigates | Sir Arthur Conan Doyle | + |
| The secret garden | David Foulds | + |
| Sunnyvista city | Peter Viney | + |
| The Mark of Zorro | Johnston McCulley | + |
| The Phantom Airman | Allan Frewin Jones | + |
Level - Intermediate
| Book title | Author | Availability of audio books |
|---|---|---|
| Mario Puzo | + | |
| Jonathan Swift | + | |
| Jerome K. Jerome | + | |
| Philip Prowse | + | |
| Richard Chisholm | + | |
| Jane Austen | + | |
| A tidy ghost | Viney, Peter | + |
| Count Vlad | Dooley, Jenny | + |
| Great Crimes | John Escott | + |
| The Thirty Nine Steps | J. Buchan | + |
| Little Women | Louisa M. Alcott | + |
| Case Of Missing Madonna | Alan McLean | + |
| The Night of the green dragon | Dorothy Dixon | + |
| A Tale of Two Cities | Charles Dickens | + |
| Management Gurus | David Evans | + |
| A Kiss Before Dying | Ira Levin | + |
| But Was It Murder | Jania Burrell | + |
| Jack the Ripper | Peter Foreman | + |
| Dr.Jekyll & Mr.Hyde | R. L. Stevenson | + |
| A taste of Murder | Sue Arengo | + |
| Le morte dArthur | Thomas Malory | + |
| City of lights | Tim Vicary | + |
| The Hitch Hiker | Tim Vicary | + |
| Space Affair | Peter Viney | + |
| The Treasure of Monte Cristo | Alexandre Dumas | + |
| The Wizard of Oz | L. Frank Baum | + |
| Three Great Plays of Shackspeare | W. Shackspeare | + |
| Treasure Island | Robert Louis Stevenson | + |
| Robinson Crusoe | Daniel Defoe | + |
| The Canterville Ghost | Oscar Wilde | + |
Upper-Intermediate level
| Book title | Author | Availability of audio books |
|---|---|---|
| R.M. Ballantyne | + | |
| Philip Prowse | + | |
| A Space Odyssey | A.C. Clarke | + |
| Doctor No | Ian Fleming | + |
| Tales of Mystery and Imagination | E.A.Poe | + |
| Ghost Stories | Rosemary Border | + |
| GoldFinger | Ian Fleming | + |
| Pride and Prejudice | Jane Austen | + |
| My Cousin Rachel | Daphne Du Maurier | + |
| Oliver Twist | Charles Dickens | + |
| Space Invaders | Geoffrey Matthews | + |
| The Queen of Death | John Milne | + |
| The Smuggler | Piers Plowright | + |
| The Sign of Four | Sir Arthur Conan Doyle | + |
| The Speckled Band and Other Stories | Sir Arthur Conan Doyle | + |
| Wuthering Heights | Emily Bront | + |
| Sense and Sensibility | Austen, Jane | + |
| The Great Gatsby | F. Scott Fitzgerald | + |
| The Sign of Four | Sir Arthur Conan Doyle | + |
| The Woman Who Disappeared | Philip Prowse | + |
| Therese Raquin | Emile Zola | + |
Quickly learning a foreign language from scratch is not just learning the basics of grammar and words from a list; first of all, it is practice. Beginners learning English from scratch regularly need to not only actively expand their vocabulary, but constantly use the acquired knowledge in practice, turning it into a skill. That is why audiobooks in English, parsing and reading them are for beginners the most important means effective learning.
Basically, audiobooks are needed so that the user actually reads himself. And for this they are indispensable. The student listens to the speaker read a fragment of text, and then reads the same segment independently. And in order not to forget what you have learned, you need to train almost every day.
In reading audiobooks, as in any other activity, you need to move from simple to complex. The first audiobooks in English can and should be for children - fairy tales, poems, songs. A professional native speaker pronounces the text slowly, as if for children. This is what you need initial stage learning a foreign language.
How to learn English correctly using audiobooks?
The Ugly Duckling in English - Disney