Tag: audiolivros

Posted in English

Updates – Portuguese Graphic Novels and Audiobooks

Posted on by Colin Lusk
The Walking Dead Part 6 Esta Triste Vida - Kirkman

I’ve just updated the Graphic Novel and Audiobook Lists with new discoveries in the last few months.

There are only a couple of new additions in the Audiobook page, mainly some new José Milhazes books on Kobo. I’ve read quite a lot of new Bandas Desenhadas though, so the graphic novels page has got about 50% longer, including “Finalmente o Verao”, which I finished today and will probably be reviewing tomorrow, plus a few others I read and reviewed earlier in the year, like Pardalita, Amor de Perdição and Quarentugas.

Remember, the list is sorted in order of how much I like them so you can ave time by starting at the top and stopping when you have reached your threshold if things that don’t seem worth bothering with.

If you’re new to the site, I have five lists: aside from these two, there are some lists with online learning resources, textbooks and language hacks, all of which get updated from time to time. You can access from the menu on the right there (or the bottom if you’re looking at this on a smartphone) but I’ll pin this post for a while to make them easier to find.

Posted in English, Portuguese

Vidadupla – Sérgio Godinho

Posted on by Colin Lusk
Vidadupla de Sérgio Godinho
Vidadupla de Sérgio Godinho

Here’s a review of the audiobook of Vidadupla (“Double Life”) by singer, poet, author and rennaissance man Sérgio Godinho. I listened to it on the Bertrand “Biblio” app, but as I mentioned before, it’s a bit unreliable in that it seems to pause itself when the screen dims or… Something… Something isn’t quite right, at least in the Android version, so I had to keep pinging it to wake it up. That’s probably OK at home but it’s a bit annoying if you’re gardening at the same time, as I was. If you haven’t already seen it, there’s a whole page about different sources of Portuguese audiobooks here. Thanks to Patis12 and Dani_Morgenstern for the corrections

Acabei de “ler” este Audiolivro do Sérgio Godinho hoje. É uma coleção de contos e o vocabulário é bastante fácil para um aluno do meu nível. Mas tinha uns problemas.

É que… A narradora tem uma voz hipnótica portanto (estou envergonhado por admitir) dei por mim a ficar repetidamente distraído* pelo ritmo da leitura e logo depois perdi o fio à meada. Rebobinei a gravação várias vezes mas afinal não apreciei o livro tanto quanto merece. Ou talvez sou eu que não mereço livros bons.

Bem, de qualquer maneira, gostei do que ouvi. Nem sequer sabia que o Senhor Godinho tinha escrito livros. Já ouvi várias músicas dele. É óbvio que é um homem que sabe criar coisas bonitas.

Posted in Portuguese

That Complaint Email In Full

Posted on by Colin Lusk

(Tch – embarrassing typo in the title of the first version of this – I need to get better at proofreading)

Well, I said I’d write an email to complain about Biblio so here it is

Exmo Senhor(a)

Fico muito contente por ver que existe uma aplicação portuguesa que disponibiliza* audiolivros portuguesas fora do controlo das grandes empresas americanas. Espero que esteja a ser bem sucedida. Já ouvi metade de um livro e quero vos informar sobre um pequeno defeito que, se fosse acertado, tornaria a aplicação mais útil para os leitores.

Parece que a app não tem permissão de continuar quando uma notificação toca ou quando o sistema operativo põe o ecrã em suspensão. Não sei especificamente como, mas o audiolivro sempre pára depois de um ou dois minutos. Tenho de tocar no ecrã para pôr a narração de volta em andamento. Isso é chato porque quero colocar o meu telemóvel no bolso enquanto estou a caminhar ou a fazer jardinagem, mas não é possível com a vossa aplicação.

Espero que este problema seja fácil de remediar porque quero comprar mais livros no futuro.

Obrigado.

Com os melhores cumprimentos,

…

*=related to that false friend I mentioned the other day of course. Disponibilizar = to make available

Posted in English

Portuguese Audiobooks – A New Chapter?

Posted on by Colin Lusk

I’m really chuffed to see Livraria Bertrand now has an audiobook section and an app for ebooks and audiobooks. You can find the page here, and it’s a little underdeveloped at the moment, but so was Audible when I first joined so I’m not giving up on it. The link takes you to the front page of the portuguese audio section, but if you look in the menu on the left-hand side you’ll see there are subheadings for history, science, classics and so on, so you can rummage around and see if anything takes your fancy.

The most annoying aspect of it is that it doesn’t have a preview feature so you can’t find out if the reader is European or Brazilian. Some are obvious, but I picked out a couple that I knew seemed like a good bet – O Vendeador de Passados by José Eduardo Agualusa and Vidadupla by Sérgio Godinho and can confirm that they are both european portuguese. Yippee!!! There are a couple of others by Godinho but as for the rest, I dunno. If you sample any, I’d love it if you could tell me what you thought in the comments. Share the knowledge!

I’ll add these to my Portuguese Audiobooks Page in the few days. In the meantime, if anyone knows anything about any of the other books, I’d love it if you could tell me about it in the comments. Let’s share the knowledge! We learners have to stick together!