Reading is the most important foreign language skill, 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 to original literature? Here adapted audiobooks on English language. 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 grammatical constructions 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:

1. – 250 words
2. – 400 words
3. – 700 words
4. – 1000 words
5. – 1400 words
6. – 1800 words
7. – 2500 words

Here are the best adapted stories by level, which we recommend using in training:

A1: Starter (for beginners):

1. Police TV
2. Red roses

A1-A2: Beginner:

1. Sherlock Holmes and the Sport of Kings (Sherlock Holmes and the Sport of Kings)
2. Love or Money? (Love or money?)
3. London

A2-B1: Elementary:

1. Robinson Crusoe
2. Anne of green gables
3. Voodoo island
4. The eyes of Montezuma

B1: Pre-Intermediate:

1. Love story
2. 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. 1. Write unfamiliar vocabulary into the dictionary.
2. 2. Study the features of the construction and use of grammatical structures.
3. 3. Read the texts out loud and repeat the words after the speaker.
4. 4. Use an English-Russian dictionary.
5. 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!

“Unread books know how to take revenge,” wrote Ray Bradbury. But how to modern man With the frenzied pace of life, why not create “avengers” for yourself? There is a solution - listen to audiobooks, and if you also do this in English, you will get double the benefits. We will tell you how to learn English from audiobooks, why you need to listen to them and how to work with them. And at the end of the article you will find links to 7 excellent sites with audiobooks in English for children and adults.

Which audiobook to listen to in English

If you don't know English high level, then not all books will be equally useful. Let's see what materials you can find on the Internet and what audiobook to listen to in English. Types of audiobooks:

1. By type of recitation

• Books narrated by a professional speaker (native speaker of English) - such books are ideal for those who want to listen to literate English speech and learn to speak like a native speaker. If you are going to repeat the words after the announcer, learn correct intonation and correct pronunciation, then this is the type that is “shown” for you. Books read by a professional speaker are universal material that is suitable for any listening purpose. They have only one drawback - they are not easy to find in the public domain.
• Books narrated ordinary people(native speakers of English) - such books are well suited for people with a knowledge level and above. If you want to get used to different accents in English and want to improve your listening comprehension, choose these books. The most important advantage of this type of audiobooks in English is that they are easy to find in the public domain. However, if your level of knowledge is below average, then it will be difficult to perceive the speech of native speakers. In addition, the audio track is most often recorded in a normal home environment, so the sound quality leaves much to be desired.
• Books narrated by Russian-speaking teachers or linguists are another good option for people with a low level of knowledge. Audio is usually recorded in professional studios, all words are pronounced clearly, it will be easy for you to understand them. On the other hand, the intonation and pronunciation of a Russian-speaking speaker are still slightly different from the intonation and pronunciation of a native speaker.
• Books created using special computer programs (Text-To-Speech) are not the best option for learning English using audiobooks. The program is not able to voice the text in such a way as to produce natural, coherent speech with the intonation characteristic of native speakers.

2. By complexity

• Children's fairy tales and stories are the simplest material that adults should not neglect. Children's books, as a rule, are read by professional speakers at a measured pace. At the same time, the texts are also easy to understand due to the vocabulary: children's books use a limited set of the most frequently used words.
• Audiobooks with supporting text - good material for those who find it difficult to understand foreign speech by ear: you can listen to a book and follow the text with your eyes. In addition, such materials are convenient to use if you are going to learn new words: you can see their spelling in the text.
• Standard audiobooks - materials for people with Intermediate level and higher. These are common notes for native speakers, so they are not always easy to understand. On the other hand, you can easily find lyrics to almost any audio on the Internet, and this will help you understand the book.

In addition, we recommend trying to listen to an audiobook, the text of which you have read more than once in Russian. Surely every person has a favorite work by an English-language author. If you remember the Russian language very well, then it will be easier for you to understand the audio recording in English.

The benefits of audiobooks in English

One of the most difficult skills when learning English is listening comprehension. To learn to understand foreigners, you need to listen to them often. Therefore, if you do not live abroad and do not communicate with native speakers every day, you need to look for available methods listening training. The best assistants in this matter are podcasts and audiobooks. Read about it. Now let’s find out why learning English from audiobooks is useful:

1. You improve your listening comprehension of English speech

This is the main reason why audiobooks in English are very popular among students. The more we listen, the faster we get used to foreign speech and begin to understand it. And if you take into account the fact that most free audiobooks are voiced by native speakers who are not professional speakers, then you can also listen to people with different pronunciations. Some will lisp, some will slur their sounds, some will speak too quickly - this is great training for your listening skills.

2. You get used to the sound of coherent speech.

The announcers do not pause between words and pronounce each phrase with natural intonation. You will gradually get used to live speech, and subsequently it will be easy for you to understand what the foreign interlocutor is saying.

3. You learn new words and phrases in context.

If we are sometimes too lazy to find and learn words from podcasts or educational texts, then an unfamiliar word that plays an important role will certainly make us want to find out what it’s about. we're talking about. Words that are important for understanding the meaning will be easy to remember because you learn them in context and understand how they are used.

4. You listen and remember how grammar is used in real speech

In theory, you understand perfectly well when to use Present Perfect, but when it comes to using this tense in speech, you get confused and don't know if it is appropriate to use it? Listening to audiobooks in English will help you understand how any grammatical structure “works” in practice. If you not just passively listen to the recording, but also think about how this or that tense is used, you will understand the principle of English grammar not in theory, but in practice.

5. You study English where it is convenient for you

Audiobooks in English are portable educational materials. You can take them with you anywhere by downloading them to your smartphone or tablet. So if you're not interested in listening to others on your way to work, listen to an audiobook. Find out how else you can use your gadget for learning from the article “”.

6. You are developing

Those same unread books that could take revenge on you now pose no danger, because you will listen to them. If you can’t always find time to read, then even the busiest person can afford to listen to an audiobook. Moreover, you can read not only fiction, but also professional or self-development books, then you will also engage in self-education without wasting a minute of your free time on it.

7. You enjoy studying

We all understand that we need to “accustom” ourselves to the sound of foreign speech, but not everyone likes podcasts. Some people are not interested in them. Audiobooks are no less addictive than coffee in the morning. If you choose interesting book, you will be carried away by the plot so quickly that you will look forward to listening to the next excerpt of your favorite work.

How to listen to audiobooks in English correctly

You can simply listen to an audiobook and enjoy it; it is suitable for those who understand English well by ear. What should those who find it difficult to understand English do? There is a technique for them that, if used regularly, will help significantly improve their listening skills. How to do it? Use a simple technique:

1. Listen to a short excerpt from a book, for example, take one chapter. It's okay if you don't understand every word; at this stage, try to grasp the general meaning of what was said.
2. Take the text of the book and turn on the recording. Listen to the speaker and at the same time follow the text with your eyes. Do not concentrate on unfamiliar words, try to guess their meanings from the context.
3. If you want to expand your vocabulary, then highlight words you don’t know in the text with a marker, then write them out of the text and learn them.
4. The next day after learning new words, listen to the audio recording of the chapter again, do not use the text, try to understand as much information as possible by ear.
5. Do you want to improve your pronunciation along with your favorite book? Then listen to the speaker and repeat the text after him, trying to copy all the sounds and intonation of a native speaker. If you decide to use this technique, you need to find an audio recording read by a professional speaker with the correct pronunciation.

Where to download audiobooks in English: 7 best sites

Children's audiobooks

1. Storynory.com is a site with children's stories in English. Ideal for those who have poor listening comprehension of English: a native speaker with clear diction recites simple children's stories. The text of the recording is located right there, and all audio files can be downloaded for free.
2. Bookbox.com is a site with children's fairy tales. There are no texts for the recordings, and there is also the possibility of listening online. But you can download any audio story for free and listen to it free time. The text uses simple vocabulary that you can easily understand.

Audiobooks with texts

3. Etc.usf.edu is one of the most convenient sites for working with audiobooks. Each work is conveniently divided into chapters, and the audio recordings are accompanied by text. You can listen to audio and follow the text on the site, or you can download Mp3 recordings and text in PDF format. It should be noted that the audio recordings are presented in professional quality, so you may not need the text.
4. Nikolledoolin.com is a resource with a small selection of audiobooks, but all of them have text, so it’s convenient to work with if it’s still difficult for you to understand an audio recording without text.

Audiobooks in English of different genres

5. Librivox.org is a resource thanks to which there are more and more free audiobooks in English every day. After following the link, you will see two buttons: Volunteer and Catalog. The Volunteer button will take you to a page for volunteers - people who read books in English and post them on this site. The Catalog button will take you to the book catalog. You can easily find the audio recording you need using the site search. Any book can be listened to online or downloaded for free.
6. Loyalbooks.com is a resource where you can find more than 7,000 free audiobooks in English. All audio files are conveniently divided into chapters, you can listen to them online or download. Most of the recordings are read by professional speakers, the sound quality is good, so it will be easy for you to understand the words.
7. Thoughtaudio.com is a site with free audiobooks in English. The recordings are presented in good quality, divided into chapters of the book, and can be downloaded for free or listened to directly on the website.

Books can be dangerous. The best ones should be labeled “This could change your life”.

Books can be dangerous. The best ones should come with a warning: “This book can change your life.”

Helen Exley

We hope you will use our tips on how to learn English from audiobooks. In this article we presented 7 great resources, and in a future article we will tell you about 10 more cool sites with free audiobooks. Want to be the first to know about them? Then subscribe and receive valuable advice from our teachers and useful links once a week!

The main advantage of an audiobook is the ability to independently fully study a foreign language. Audiobooks for learning English for beginners are a multi-level course that are created specifically for teaching the language from scratch to fluency in English.

Audiobooks perfectly combine multimedia and the possibility of free distance learning. Thanks to interactivity, translation into Russian, and the ability to plan classes yourself.

These books provide quick and effective assimilation of educational material and in many ways replace the services of a tutor, but not in all. To achieve perfect pronunciation, it is still better to turn to a professional.

Another advantage of a multimedia book is its portability. This book will not take up much space in your bag or backpack. You simply record an audio file on a flash drive, player, phone or disk and you can start learning when and where it is convenient for you. Audiobooks are intended primarily to develop communication abilities.

I have prepared for you a list of the best, in my opinion, audiobooks for beginners learning English:

Audiobook by T. A. Morozova “English Audio Course for Beginners” Audiobook by T. A. Morozova “English Audio Course for Beginners” is designed for teaching children aged 6-8 years, but adults who are just starting to learn the language can also use this book. This audiobook will help you learn basic vocabulary, phonetics and grammar.

Today, this manual is one of the best self-teaching books that fully meets all the requirements of the education system. And thanks to this unusual format, the training will not only be of high quality, but also very interesting.

English in 1 hour

English in 1 hour Another popular audio course for beginners, which lasts exactly 60 minutes. Several short lessons in audio format can be listened to and repeated everywhere: On vacation, at home, in the car, on the subway. This book will help you accumulate the necessary practical minimum so that you can feel confident when communicating with native speakers.

This is one of the Living Language bestsellers with a parallel Russian translation, which contains over 400 of the most necessary words and expressions. Just listen and repeat after the announcer conversations on various everyday topics, from words of politeness to questions that will help you explain yourself in a restaurant. There are also sections on dating, meetings and nightlife.

English language. Intensive course for beginners

An audiobook that will help you master a language in a very short time a short time. Covers almost all topics of everyday social and everyday life and cultural spheres communications of modern British and American people. The user is offered 2,500 words and phrases to memorize; training will take 150 academic hours.

The MP3 book by Tatyana Latysheva is clearly aimed at developing practical skills and knowledge in the student, and does not contain unnecessary information on topics of little demand. Only the necessary and sufficient minimum.

English step by step

Popular textbooks have recently been released in PDF format. Now this is an initial audio course, which is based on a completely new principle of language teaching. The exercises are based on modern speech patterns of native speakers. The audiobook is intended for all beginners starting to learn a foreign language from scratch.

The recording of the book can be used by students of secondary educational institutions and universities in group courses. And also for learning English on your own. The course is recommended by the Ministry of Education of the Russian Federation for students of non-linguistic higher educational institutions.

English for holidays abroad

English for holidays abroad Audiobook for those who are planning to travel or vacation abroad in the near future. English is known to be the language of international communication. Therefore, wherever you are going on a tourist trip, this course will be very useful for you to improve your knowledge in this area, expand vocabulary and improving pronunciation.

The MP3 file contains many topics that can be useful on vacation - politeness, arrival, hotel registration, transport, food, customer service, attractions and museums, money, talking on the phone, shopping, health care. Be sure to take this book with you on your travels!

Listening to audiobooks is good method learning English, which helps to combine business with pleasure. At the same time, you develop listening skills (listening to English speech), expand your vocabulary, and get acquainted with the masterpieces of world literature.

People who narrate audiobooks tend to be speakers with pleasant, correct pronunciation.

How can you work with audiobooks?

You can listen to audiobooks in English: on the road, in the morning, before bed, while cleaning the house, preparing lunch, or you can set aside special time for this.

There are people who argue that you should definitely follow the text, so you will remember more words and their correct pronunciation. Others prefer to just listen, making the argument that when you come to an English-speaking country and go to a store/pub/museum, you will not be able to look into the script to understand what they are saying to you. Likewise, when listening to audio recordings, you need to try to understand the meaning without looking anywhere. It seems to me that you can look at the text. This won't hurt at the beginning level, especially if the narrator reads quickly and you can't catch whole sentences.

Some They don’t try to translate absolutely every word from an audiobook and study one book for a long time, listening to it many times. In order to transfer words and expressions of the English language from passive to active, they do the following: read aloud, recording their speech on audio media, in order to compare their pronunciation with the pronunciation of the speaker. There are also those who try to manually record everything that the announcer says.

I advise learn English with interest. Therefore, if you really like the book and you want to learn it yourself and know every word, then your desire to sit with it for hours is understandable. At the same time, remember that women need to listen and repeat after the female narrator, men need to listen to the pronunciation of male readers, and do not forget about age! However, you still shouldn’t stop at one book or reader. The more you listen to English, the more diverse the genres and narrators, the better you will perceive English by ear.

Where can I find audiobooks in English?

Today there are several good foreign sites that provide free audiobooks in English for downloading:

- one of the best collections of audiobooks.

- short audio stories.

– volunteers (native speakers) read books and send files to the site. Absolutely free audiobooks with good quality sound and texts.

– classic audiobooks.

– free audiobooks and videos for learning and self-development.

– an interesting resource, free modern audiobooks, often read by the authors themselves, mostly with musical accompaniment. You can read reviews from those who have already listened to the books.

About four years ago the site was a magical place where you could easily download audiobooks in English. But, unfortunately, now you can only download anything from there for free in terrible quality. The cost of full-length audiobooks is $5-8

You can choose a book:

• by category – fiction/ for children / not artistic,
• according to the narrator - woman/man,
• according to the English option - American/British,
• according to additional parameters - no murders, no swearing, not adapted, not marked “for adults only”,
• after listening to the excerpt.

Of course, there are Russian-language sites that offer downloads of audiobooks in English, but, unfortunately, there are not many books there and they are repeated, and sometimes instead of audiobooks there are either VOA (Voice of America) broadcasts, or, much less often, BBC.

What to remember?

Perhaps the most important thing is to regularly study with audiobooks in English. Don't stop just because you've downloaded a couple of books. Set aside a specific time for listening and practice every day. Remember that listening to audio books in English a little but often is better than listening a lot but rarely. Have fun! I wish you success!

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 either as audio recordings voiced by a professional speaker (native speaker) or as text in pdf or doc format, which is very convenient for serious and in-depth work with the chosen work.

Level - Starter (the easiest audiobooks in English for beginners)

Level – Beginner

Level Elementary

Level - Pre-Intermediate (adapted audiobooks in English of average difficulty level)

Level - Intermediate

Upper-Intermediate level