Iām interested in hearing about if/how people use audiobooks to supplement their reading.
If there is an audiobook available for a book, how do you prefer to enjoy the title?
Reading the book (physical/ebook)
Listening to the audiobook
Reading and listening at the same time
No preference
Other (comment below)
0voters
I like the idea of reading and listening simultaneously, but find it difficult to keep up with audiobooks. For easier books, such as graded readers, this isnāt much of a problem - I will usually listen to a chapter then go back and check anything I didnāt understand. For more difficult books, Iāve been using WorkAudioBook - Audio Player for Language Learners to listen sentence by sentence.
I can think of a few different methods of using the audiobook with the physical or digital book:
Reading and listening simultaneously
Reading and listening separately
Reading and listening separately, then together
Either reading or listening, then together
And when coming across difficult parts:
Pause and reread/relisten, or
Finish the paragraph/chapter and then return to the difficult parts
So Iād like to hear how other people use audiobooks, and, if you read and listen simultaneously, how you started doing so and if this has changed over time.
I voted āotherā as I completely read Nazotoki 2 before I started listening to the audiobook. I donāt know if Iād especially recommend this method or not - itās better for testing general listening and getting the gist rather than learning specific words and understanding perfectly.
I was also curious where everyone gets their audiobooks - I use audible UK but there isnāt a lot of choice so far as I can tell!
I use Audible JP (unlimited streaming, so much better than the UK version ) and Google Play (not a great browsing experience, but often have the ebook and audiobook linked). I might try Storytel at some point, since they seem to support a wide range of languages.
If the audiobook is easy enough, I listen to it without reading the book.
I sometimes listen to audiobooks after having read the book, usually because the narration is great
I might occasionally use the audiobook alongside reading the book if I am tired, the book is a tad too difficult [but I still want to finish it] or a book is dragging particularly badly
Iāve been trying to only use written materials with audio in German and French where we use (mostly) the same character set and are way more prone to picking up reading influenced accents. While this is less of an issue in Japanese (and my language level is way higher in Japanese), Iām still trying to audiobook+text when thatās an option for the same reason. Itās obviously not going to help much with manga, but if I like a series I do try and go back and watch the anime (raw or with j-subs, depending on the vocabulary and style of show).
For not being able to keep up with the reading speed, I usually just turn the audiobook speed down to where I can keep up in the text. Which does lead to some hilariously slow audiobooks sometimes, but I can usually keep up with about 0.85x-0.9x so itās not too too bad.
I tried reading+audio once but found out just wanting to read ahead and was annoyed how slow the audio was. I guess I couldāve sped it up, though, but somehow I didnāt feel right doing that to the audio.
Few times Iāve used the audiobook effectively to get out of a slump or finish a book I found a bit taxing to only read (too difficult etc.). Can also give more connection to the characters.
If I like the voice of the person reading, reading and listening at the same time is the best (it especially helps fight my ADHDās tendency to have my mind drift away and keeps me focused).
Otherwise, if I like the book and really want to know what happens next, I may use the audiobook while Iām walking/outside and the book when I am home/seated.
I listen to most English audiobooks at 3x speed. (My brain canāt concentrate on normal speed.) Donāt feel bad. Narrators purposefully read slower than spoken language. (and definitely slower than most people read quietly)
Yeah but you donāt probably read the text at the same time? Iād rather just read on my own pace without it at that point. I think audiobooks could be valuable practice with natural speed, but if Iām just speeding through it, I donāt think Iām absorbing as much.
I donāt particularly enjoy listening to audiobooks in English - itās been a few years since I last listened to one - but I do feel theyāre unbearably slow. I have the same problem watching youtube videos in English; I usually watch them at 2x otherwise I get annoyed.
So after reminding myself that Storytel existed, I ended up signing up and trying it out.
Itās a monthly āunlimitedā subscription, so you can stream as much as you want. Unlike Audible JP, there doesnāt seem to be an option to buy titles individually. I didnāt have any problems with payment, and it doesnāt seem like thereās any regional restrictions.
As part of the sign-up process, you choose the language you want from the several they offer - I picked Korean, but I can also listen to English and Chinese audiobooks. In the settings, you can select which of these languages you want to be displayed (Iām only interested in Korean, but can select all three if I want).
I donāt know if they offer this if you choose another language - perhaps they always offer English titles alongside whichever language you choose, but it would be interesting to find out what other languages are paired up (Iām assuming if I had chosen Chinese, theyād have given me Korean, too).
Although you can browse their catalogue online, you can only listen using the app, which is a little annoying. They also offer ebooks, although not a huge amount (in Korean at least).
Iāve come across several titles I was planning on buying on Google Plus, so Iām happy about that (especially the Harry Potter books - the price for the Korean audiobooks on GP are shocking).
3x is for fiction only, though. (German can sometimes go up to 3.5x ) Non-fiction is usually around 1.8-2x tops. But yeah, while I do have an inner voice, I have always been a fast reader. I think everyone just has a natural speed at which their brain is comfortable processing speech and thatās kind of where youāll end up with your reading speed, imo. Even with youtube, TV shows or movies, I usually speed them up, if itās not Japanese. Otherwise for me itās like swimming through a swamp. It feels just so slow and I find it difficult to keep engaged. Cinemas work to some extent but even there I sometimes feel my brain drift away. It has itās perks but is also annoying, ngl.
You can see when I started with audiobooks (2014) and also when I was struggling mentally. 2021 was an experiment which I do not recommend. 2022 is when I really started reading Japanese, so my average went down a bit. This year is a bit of a weird year, because I am not trying to read a lot, it just happens.
not in English or German, no. And in Japanese I donāt speed up. I am not there yet. donāt ask me how slow this feels to me.
I canāt really get into audiobooks. I get distracted too easily and I found (at least for English books) the narration for the handful of audiobooks Iāve sampled to be monotone and/or awkward. Maybe I just havenāt tried the right ones.
The only audiobook I actually listened to in full was ćććæć®å¤å (Kagami no Kojou) in Japanese because every character is voiced by a different voice actor and overall it felt like it added something over the text-only book.
While no one has to read audiobooks, if you would like to start enjoying them, here are some things that I have found to be true for me:
a.) I need to finde the perfect speed for every audiobook. While 3x is common, itās not set in stone.
b.) doing something besides listening (running, commuting, housework, ā¦) is vital
c.) not every genre works for audiobook for me. [I struggle, for example, with high fantasy or hard sci-fi as an audiobook. Same with non-fiction with lots of numbers etc., narrative non-fiction (memoirs, etc.) works extremely well, though]
d.) not every narrator works for me
but if you like full cast audiobooks, those exist in English too.
I tend to be unable to read and listen at the sane time, I end up focusing on listening then forget where I am or I just blank both completely and space out so I tend to use audiobooks when Iām doing other stuff and use them to passively listen, or I read the story first, then listen separately then maybe Iāll read it a second time. There are a few books I have listened to multiple times purely for exposure to the language, especially some of the short story books.
Welp, those are pretty much 95% of my English books read, so at least Iām not the only one struggling with their audiobook version. Iām really keen about catching every detail so usually my concentration drifts a bit and then I need to go back, which makes it a bit annoying. Maybe I need to try raising the speed to concentrate better like you saidā¦ Sometimes you just want to savour the content, though. Being super-efficient could lessen enjoyment as well. Can happen if just reading too fast, too.
I have really fond memories of listening to Ready Player One, though. Read by Will Wheaton.
I am not going for efficient, though. Speed-reading is a whole different game. But yeah, with detail heavy books where those details are important to the story (such as the world-building in high fantasy or the tech stuff in hard scifi), physically reading is easier. If something confuses me, I can easily go back a paragraph or even a different chapter, if I remember something had been mentioned before, etc. with audiobooks thatās basically not possible.
but for low-effort (and I donāt mean this in a bad way) stuff like Ready Player One, audiobooks can be great, imo
My listening is pretty weak. I want to try some audiobooks but I canāt keep up and have to pause it frequently.
So do you think itās a good idea to turn the speed down or will it make my ears and brain even more lazy?
I donāt think it makes your brain lazy. The more you read the faster you get. Same with listening. Eventually youāll be able to get back to normal (or even above) speed. Just make sure that the audiobook is on an appropriate level (i.e. usually lower than your reading level).
) and Google Play (not a great browsing experience, but often have the ebook and audiobook linked). I might try Storytel at some point, since they seem to support a wide range of languages.
) Non-fiction is usually around 1.8-2x tops. But yeah, while I do have an inner voice, I have always been a fast reader. 
I think everyone just has a natural speed at which their brain is comfortable processing speech and thatās kind of where youāll end up with your reading speed, imo. Even with youtube, TV shows or movies, I usually speed them up, if itās not Japanese. Otherwise for me itās like swimming through a swamp. It feels just so slow and I find it difficult to keep engaged. Cinemas work to some extent but even there I sometimes feel my brain drift away. 
It has itās perks but is also annoying, ngl.
2022 is when I really started reading Japanese, so my average went down a bit. This year is a bit of a weird year, because I am not trying to read a lot, it just happens. 
donāt ask me how slow this feels to me. 
so I tend to use audiobooks when Iām doing other stuff and use them to passively listen, or I read the story first, then listen separately then maybe Iāll read it a second time. There are a few books I have listened to multiple times purely for exposure to the language, especially some of the short story books.
