How to learn foreign languages the easy way and bilingual audio books : First, while looking at what’s out there, consider all types of books. Don’t limit yourself to just one “scholarly” source or even a language learning text. With bilingual e-books, all reading genres are represented. Choose something that piques your interest. There’s no shame in starting “small”—what I mean is, keep it basic to begin with. You don’t need to grab “War and Peace” for your first e-book—or even your twenty-first. Children’s books or comic books are solid reading materials and both are available for bilingual e-reading.
Did you know that a woman by the name of Pura Belpre was New York City’s first Puerto Rican librarian? She came to the U.S. in 1921, carrying the cuentos folkloricos (folktales) of her homeland. She found work as a bilingual assistant, where she retold those stories from Puerto Rico. Today, generations of children and storytellers continue to share her tales and celebrate her legacy. In honor of this new story, we’ve put together a few reasons why we think it’s beneficial to read bilingual stories and diverse voices to your children.
The street epistemology teaches us how to do so. It consists partly in pushing the interlocutor to ask himself questions. The questions we ask ourselves do not meet the defensive stubbornness that questions asked by a third party meet. This audio guide is bilingual: that is, it presents itself as a language learning tool. The title indicates that it is a parody of the practical guides. A “serious” guide would not be concerned about helping the guru to build his enterprise. Because this bilingual audio book is often fun, offering it to a member-of-a-cult friend, or relative, is not perceived as a threat, or as a criticism of his choices. See additional details at Bilingual books – How to create your cult.
Even with all the benefits of audiobooks, however, they are not for all students. For some, the pace may be too fast or too slow. For others, the narrator’s voice can be irritating or the use of cassette or CD players can be cumbersome when compared to the flexibility of the book. But the majority of students will find listening to well-narrated, quality literature to be a transformative experience. Varley (2002) states, “If one thing has struck me about the way people describe listening to audiobooks, it is the reported intensity of their absorption and the emotional grip of the experience. ‘They go right to your soul,’ says one listener.”
The children listened…. and their parents too. Listening was not felt as a chore but as a delight. So, we decided to prepare bilingual audiobooks from “classical” works. Then, we thought we should publish contemporary short works in at least 2 languages (by the way, if you are the happy author of a work up to 25.000 words, prepare to submit it.) We propose mostly human voices, because to listen to synthetic voices feels… synthetic. But, whatever their accent, the synthetic voices offer a faultless pronunciation, which is important for the student. So, we prepare some sound files with synthetic voices. See extra details at Bilingual Audio Books.