Bilingual audio recordings?

[johngorentz.livejournal.com]

I'm wondering if there exists such a thing as bilingual (Russian-English) audio recordings of books or anything else that might be interesting.

Here's why. I've been dabbling in several languages over the past few years, mostly getting the Pimsleur courses on my MP3 player to work through while riding my bicycle or driving -- especially while riding. But I've started to get more serious about learning Russian than any of the other languages, and I will soon have used up the Pimsleur.

I have learned the alphabet enough to use written materials, have found some bilingual books which I work on now and then, have a couple of small dictionaries, and have used things like Russian for Dummies. My wife and I watch Russian movies (usually with subtitles. I watch them the first time with her, then I watch portions of them over, repeatedly, especially if they are interesting). And at work there is a Russian woman who sometimes has a minute to help me.

But none of those are things I can do while riding my bicycle. I'd like to find something to use when Pimsleur can take me no farther. I have the idea that what I'd like is bilingual audio books, such that the reader reads a sentence or so in Russian, after which there is slight pause followed by an English translation, then another passage in Russian, followed by a translation, and so on.

Has anyone ever heard of such a thing? I presume there is not much of a market for anything like that. But I thought I would ask. If it's a stupid idea, I suppose I need to be made aware of that, too.

P.S. Someday I'd like to go on one of these tours put on by something called the Russian Cycle Touring Federation. But I suppose that will never come about. I'll probably never get any further than tantalizing myself by looking at the photos. So I just ride in the U.S. midwest, where I call myself the Spokesrider

Comments

[crimeanelf.livejournal.com]

Depends on what you mean by bilingual.

You may certainly find audiobooks on Russian of the books translated from English. You may also certainly find the audiobooks of original, if it works for you. But the translation will never be exactly phrase-to-phrase, like in movies.

[bekesha.livejournal.com]

It's not a stupid idea at all - they do exist - I even have a couple of those :-)
The whole recording is split up into bunch of small files 3-5 min each
So what you may do is to listen to one in Russian, then to the one from another set in English

[johngorentz.livejournal.com]

3-5 minute chunks would be helpful. So where does one get that kind of recording?

[bekesha.livejournal.com]

for example - http://www.ozon.ru/context/detail/id/2384575/

[moa1918.livejournal.com]

I have only seen those with what might be called phrase books, sometimes they have dialogues. One sentence in the foreign language, followed by the translation. They are rather common here in Sweden.

Another idea I've seen on some message bords is to take the audio from the movie and just listen to that over again, though I have no idea how to do that.

Hope you'll find something that works for you!

Moa

[johngorentz.livejournal.com]

That idea of using movie sound tracks sounds very promising! I had not thought of that before. I like it. I can think of movies I'd like to try that way, and it would help me get a lot more mileage from my viewing. Multiple voices and other sounds would help keep me from getting too lost. Maybe it's not so good for some Tarkovsky films that go for long spells between words, though.

After posting my original question I came up with something else that might be similarly useful -- a lightly dramatized recording of the Christian New Testament, with multiple voices and other sounds.

A few years ago I got a set of cassette tapes like this in French. Our young new pastor wanted everyone to listen to the entire New Testament during Lent, and gave us a choice of recordings to buy. I was somewhat irritated by his idea, because I already was maxed out in all my listening time -- working on Pimsleur language tapes and listening to audio books. When I saw Spanish on the list of recordings we could get, I told him there weren't enough languages to choose from -- that I didn't see Portugese or Russian there.

He called my bluff and gave me a complete list of all the languages. (They're from these people: http://faithcomesbyhearing.org/). Well, I had just barely touched Russian at that time, and saw that there was a limited-vocabulary version of French, so went with the lightly-dramatized version of that one. It was surprisingly well done and pleasant to listen to -- not overacted or overproduced. I think it was recorded in West Africa.

I have listened to the gospel books while riding my bicycle. I can follow those parts because there is narrative and dialog with different voices, and I am familiar enough with them to have some idea what to expect. The other parts are not so easy to follow.

I didn't think there was anything like that in Russian, though. I had looked a couple of times since then, with no luck. But last night I looked again, and there is one that looks promising. It's a "Holy Synod" version, whatever that is. A little googling suggests to me that it is is going to be modern enough to be useful, and is different from the old church Slavonic. Do you think that is so?

And it seems that bible group doesn't do cassette tapes any more. Now they have CDs with MP3 files that I can download to my reader. (I was probably the last person in the world still using cassette tapes, which I was doing until year before last.)

Anyhow, between that and the audio from movies, I think I will have something to help me make progress. The movies will probably be the more appropriate of the two at this point, but I'll try both. Glad I asked! Thanks, everyone!