Chinese Audio Books Free Download
Lang Nunnally
I have learnt English to my current level without ever having lived in an English-speaking country. I attribute this mostly to very large amounts of input, mostly in the form of books. When I was around 20, I figured that I would never be able to read all the books I wanted to read, so I started listening to audiobooks as a complement to reading normally.
There are a number of factors you should keep in mind when selecting an audiobook. Since many of these vary a lot, you might need to try several before you choose one to actually stick with. This is essential, do not just choose one randomly and dive in, because it might be many times harder than it needs to be.
Audiobooks are a great way of learning and the best kind of long-form content I know. Have you listened to any books in Chinese? Please post a comment and share your experience. If you liked the book, please give some more information so that other readers can listen to the book too!
I recently discovered Seems like a good place to listen to audiobooks. Most of the ones I had a listen there sounded nice. By the way, I found it while looking through some books at shushengbar.net, they mostly post about web novels translated into English, along with the links to audiobooks and the original text, so might be of use to some.
The user interface is very simple to use, too. All you need to do is download the app, browse for a book and either buy or rent it. Your audiobook will be ready to listen to immediately.
Ximalaya is entirely in Hanzi and probably not the best audiobook resource for Mandarin newbies. For intermediate and advanced readers, you can enjoy an equally ample supply of audiobooks that are mostly free of charge.
To find Chinese audiobooks on Pingshu8.com, you can browse by category, author or title. The platform provides both free and premium content, giving users the flexibility to choose based on their preferences and budget.
Listening to audio books in a very good way to improve your listening ability beyond the basics. This article contains advice about how to choose a suitable novel, where to find it and how to listen to it.
Bite-sized learning is great, but it's not enough if you want to build real competence in Chinese listening and reading. To expose yourself to enough text and audio, you need long-form content that you can keep using even when you're energy levels...
Obviously an alternative solution for this is both to specifically practice speaking (maybe space repetition a batch of sentences hitting different grammar points in excel) so you have the grammar drilled into your subconscious AND speaking with a native - something like through iTalki is the way to get around the limitations of written chinese and therefore, audiobooks.
Hi Esmeralda! Ximalaya only features audio narration with the book cover; the inside of the books are copyrighted and not included. We bought many of our Chinese books based on Ximalaya favorites, and you can find ISBN information in our Chinese book reviews here!
My plan is to listen to audiobooks of stuff I read last year. My goal is to do it: 1) at full speed, 2) without pausing, 3) without looking at text, and 4) (stretch) while doing other brainless stuff like chores. So far I've tried it for 2 weeks, about 15 hours, and wanted to track / share my progress.
The net result was my listening ability was still very sporadic. I could understand only short sentences at full speed. I had tried listening to some Upper Intermediate audio on duchinese and I could only understand it if I also read subtitles at the same time. If it wasn't concurrent reading, I needed to get to half speed, sometimes 3/4 speed, with pauses, to understand 70% of it -- if I listened after I read the text.
2. When I started: Because I read all of audiobook content already last year, I had hopes I'd be able to jump right ahead to listening at full speed, without the text. Nope. Got lost again.
The best part though is the ability to re-orient myself if I get lost. This doesn't seem to be content specific -- it helps even with new stuff, random audio that I haven't heard before. If I can't figure it out right away, just wait a little bit, and I can slowly re-figure out what's going on.
4. Listening v. Reading speed: I've gone through at least one complete book in audio. Comparing the time spent listening to that book vs the number of characters in the book, I find the audio goes at 273 cpm. That's still faster than my leveled-up reading speed, which is humbling.
The thing is audio links decay faster, so 6 months later, both of these may be gone. Some of the original links I found when I was assessing the viability of this plan are gone, but I found replacements.
Yes. That's a big reason I picked audio books. It's part of my training wheels. Also, it's been months up to a year since I read it, so it's not like I remember everything. Parts of it still suprise me -- oh I forgot that bit.
The plan is I'm going to level up my percentage and than try new books. E.g. one wrinkle I'm going to experiment with is to listen to a sequel of a book without having read it. Since I'm still listening faster than reading, that'll save time.
Plus I'm listening to stuff I read that I liked, so I'm entertained. Listening to children books reminds me of kids listening to bed time stories, or kids listening to stories around a fire, so I imagine it's very natural form of language acquisition.
Your comment on getting use to novels after 50k characters is pretty interesting, and also very true. Whenever I start a new audiobook (previously have not read the book), I always have to really focus in the first few chapters, and once I'm use to all the characters, names etc I'm able to listen while being busy.
I always tend to recommend people to listen to podcast because it's shorter and it's something you can pick up at anytime. Next time I'm in a conversation about this, I'll definitely mention that one can get use to an audiobook and it can become easier overtime.
I see you're using ximalaya which I use to use, but recently it's geo locking me out I've since switch to use 微信读书 and 微信听书 (both have transcripts, including the podcast in 微信听书). Their freeium model is pretty good!
微信听书 seems to be mobile based only, and again as an old-fogey I prefer computer based solutions. Plus I'm building up some scripts to log my audio progress too. But I like the free 90 mins a day, so I might try it out later, once I get bored with my present routine. So appreciate the tip.
Is Himalaya even providing Chinese content and Chinese audiobooks? On the website they say: "Practical advice from world-class experts, packed into short audio lessons that will help you be happier, healthier, and more successful". It shows mostly western books by Warren Buffet, Steve Jobs, etc ( ) ?
This collection is also available in Kindle and print version so you can follow along with the audiobook. Each chapter includes Pinyin, English translation, a vocabulary list and some questions to test your comprehension.
This audiobook edition of Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Curly Haired Company is graded at level one, meaning it introduces 300 unique Chinese characters (for upper-intermediate students). The story is also available in print and on Kindle.
I have placed it in the Advanced section because this audiobook is not specifically designed for language learners like the previous entries in this list, but Upper Intermediate learners may be up to the challenge.
Embark on a captivating journey through Mandarin Chinese proficiency with "Listen to HSK3." Immerse yourself in this meticulously crafted audiobook, featuring 31 high-quality audio files, each unveiling ten essential HSK3 words, their English translations, and dynamic Chinese example sentences. Perfect for language enthusiasts and HSK3 test preparations, "Listen to HSK3" offers an immersive and effective approach to enhancing your Mandarin vocabulary and language skills. Tune in to this symphony of Mandarin excellence and let the journey to fluency begin!
These four tales are based on very old stories collected and retold by Lin Yutang in Famous Chinese Short Stories, originally published in 1948. Lin wrote dozens of books in Chinese and English, and has been recognized for his witty and warm style of writing, and for bringing Chinese culture to an English-speaking audience. We have selected four of his best stories for inclusion in this book, and have retold them to appeal to modern listeners and use a limited vocabulary of just 700 different Chinese words.
These six wonderful folk tales are based on stories told by Norman Hinsdale Pitman in A Chinese Wonder Book, originally published in 1918. Pitman collected and published several collections of folk tales and other Chinese books. We have taken the liberty of retelling all six stories to be appropriate for a modern audience, and to use a limited vocabulary, most of which are in the standard 1200-word HSK4 vocabulary.
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