Friday, November 28, 2008

LV recordings

Since I've been getting some (Ok, ok, 3) comments about LV readings, I thought I'd have a post for that, in case people are looking for a place to post their comments.
Comme j'ai reçu quelques commentaires concernant mes enregistrements Librivox, j'ai pensé dédier un post pour permettre aux auditeurs de laisser des commentaires.

Up to now, my solo projects include:
Jusqu'à présent, mes projets solos incluent: 
- Le Comte de Monte-Cristo (Dumas) [FR]
- Les Trois mousquetaires (Dumas) [FR]
- Discours sur l’origine et les fondements de l’inégalité parmi les hommes (Rousseau) [FR]
- Fêtes galantes (Verlaine) [FR]
- Illuminations (Rimbaud) [FR]
- Maria Chapdelaine (Hémon) [FR]
- Poèmes Saturniens (Verlaine) [FR]
- Two Years in the Forbidden City [EN]

For everything else, please look here
Pour mes autres contributions, veuillez vous rendre ici: 
My LV Catalog page

So if you have any comments, suggestions, or criticism, or if you live in Aix-la-Chappelle and I screwed up the pronunciation of your town, please post a reply to this message!
Si vous avez des commentaires, des suggestions, ou des critiques, ou si vous habitez Aix-la-Chappelle et que j'ai mal prononcé le nom de votre ville, laissez moi un commentaire!

***

Thank you to all listeners!
Merci à tous les auditeurs! :)

42 comments:

Anonymous said...

I, too, have listened to your rendering of "Les trois mousquetaires" - with great pleasure. You really have a knack for it - it was obvious when Porthos was speaking, etc.
Many thanks.

I also appreciated the solo voice. Your diction is infallible, very easy to grasp even for me (Danish).
I shall now continue with other works by your voice.

Anick said...

Just listened to Maria Chapdelaine... Funny how you sing "Dans cette étable" :) I remembered a different melody to it.

I felt emotion in the next to last chapter as well.. Very nice to have solo projects on LV!

Anonymous said...

Merci pour votre enregistrement du Comte de Monte Cristo.
Votre diction est excellente et si parfois il fait sourire d'entendre un personnage provençal parler avec l'accent de la belle province, la qualité et la constance de votre lecture, de votre ton m'impressionne.

Sur une telle longueur, vous tenez le marathon, et ce n'est pas chose facile.

Anonymous said...

Hey JC, I have been listening to The Mystery of the Yellow Room. Just what is your background? Your English diction is great - and from the other comments I take it that your French is equally perfect. But I can't place your accent.

Whatever, you are an excellent reader and I am truly enjoying The Yellow Room.

MaryAnn (who has been a lawyer now for some 15+ years, is still enjoying the profession while hopefully making a positive contribution to society at large, and who wishes you a long and satisfying career)

lazare said...

Quand j'ecoute ta voix j'oublie ma propre vie et j'arrive a un niveau de beaute et de grace. je m'apelle lazare et tu m'as donne une nouvelle vie.

Nicholas Clifford said...

I've been listening to the Yellow Room, and was very impressed by your reading, and particularly your handling of French. But is that also you reading from the Tang shi sanbai shou? My wenyan is pretty rusty, but if that is you, the Mandarin is a pleasure to listen to. And if it is you, have you recorded any modern -- baihua -- Chinese?

Jc said...

@ Lazare: ce que vous dites là est tellement beau, et tellement touchant! Merci beaucoup!!

Jc said...

@ Nicholas Clifford: Yes, I read some of the Tang Shi. Thank you so much for the compliments! I'm so glad you liked my readings! I haven't recorded any modern Chinese yet, mainly because I don't really know much about chinese literature.

Do you have any Public Domain books to suggest?

ClarissaMach said...

JC, I'm one of your fans. I'm Brazilian and I'm looking forward to learning French by myself. One of the best ways to study in my opinion is by listening to audiobooks whereas reading the content on the internet. And this is why you've been joining me (in a way) for about two weeks (I'm listening to "Le comte de Monte-Cristo" by Alexandre Dumas).

I would like to volunteer to librivox reading books in Portuguese (there are few of them in the catalog), but I don't have the equipment to do it yet.

Y said...

I really like your recordings for Princess Derling's TWo years in the forbidden city. You have a nice voice, which makes the story even more pleasant. :) Thanks! I wish I could read like that too

Anonymous said...

Ken C.
Thanks for your great recording of..Forbidden City. I am really enjoying it. I hope you are enjoying law. I teach law in Australia and I have an adopted Thai daughter who is finishing her degree in Thailand-then coming here to do her LL.B in English. Keep up the good work-and keep at the law, like philosophy, it takes a lot of reading, understanding and...endurance.

Anonymous said...

Bonjour de Shanghai,
La langue et la litterature française me manquait et j'ai découvert librivox par hasard, aussi je me permet de vous remercier d'abord pour les trois mousquetaires que j'ai fini d'écouter hier.

Je suis en train de télécharger d'autres livres à écouter. Je suis aussi curieux sur votre background, puisque ceux qui manient les trois langues que sont le français, chinois et anglais ne sont pas des plus nombreux, bien que j'espère en faire partie un de ses jours. En attendant, permettez que je vous dise bravo!

Et, bien qu'originaire de Montréal, j'ai quitté ma ville natale pour Shanghai il y a déjà une année de cela, aussi je me permet d'écrire 海内存知己,天涯若比邻. Bonne continuation dans tout ce que vous entreprendrez.

-CLB

Jc said...

Bonjour CLB!
Merci beaucoup pour vos beaux mots, ça fait plaisir de voir que les gens apprécient ce que l'on fait. :)

Je suis née en Chine, mais j'habite Montréal depuis que j'ai 4 ans. Je ne pense pas qu'il y ait beaucoup d'endroits autre qu'à Montréal où l'on peut si aisément acquérir deux langues comme le français et l'anglais.

Merci beaucoup, et bonne continuation à vous aussi! Shanghai est une place formidable, et tellement dynamique!

Jc

jimmmy said...

Jc - I thoughily enjoyed your reading of "Laotzu’s Tao and Wu Wei", to the extent that I went looking for your other work. I've just finished "Two Years in the Forbidden City". Wonderful! Now looking for the next of yours to listen to. Thank you!
Jimmy - New Zealand

Unknown said...

Dear Jc,

I started listening to the Comte de Monte Cristo as a way to keep up my French. I never thought that I would make it all the way through but your reading made it such a pleasure that I couldn't put it down (or rather, turn it off).
I especially enjoyed your French with an English and Italian accent. You have a rare talent. Thank you for sharing it with us.
Tim

Jack Torrance said...

I am listening to your Montecristo... thanks for reading! Your French AND English sound very good... what is your mother tongue though? Chinese?

David Hogge said...

I also enjoyed your reading of "Two Years." I have read the book previously, and your voice is exactly as I had imagined Der Ling would sound.

Anonymous said...

J.c, Guan
Vous lizes tres bien et il y a peu de personnes qui le font comme vous
il a ete un veritable plasir de ecouter votre lecture de "Los tres mosqueteros" en francais
FELICITACION
Une Mexiquaine qui a etudie en France
Yeya

Anonymous said...

J.c, Guan
Vous lizes tres bien et il y a peu de personnes qui le font comme vous
il a ete un veritable plasir de ecouter votre lecture de "Los tres mosqueteros" en francais
FELICITACION
Une Mexiquaine qui a etudie en France
Yeya

Jc said...

Merci beaucoup pour le commentaire, et bonne chance dans vos etudes de francais!

Anonymous said...

I've just finished listening to The Brothers Karamzov, and I wanted to commmend you on a great job.

Clear language. Soothing voice. And, I must add, cute accent.

Thanks.

-sam

Jc said...

Hi Sam!!

Thank you so much for the kind words!

Anonymous said...

MERCI , beaucoup belle lecture , j'ai votre liste de lecture que vous a faite , peu de romans en francais bien que vous avez choisit des texte tres longs , je suis tres admirative ,merci encore

Jc said...

Merci beaucoup pour les beaux mots!

Anonymous said...

hi JC,

Thanks for your hard work. but i do have some comments, i hope u dont mind.

Your reading of the first book of:
http://librivox.org/commentaries-on-the-laws-of-england-by-william-blackstone/

was a little too fast, and the pronounciation not clear enough, in my opinion. i haven't made it thru the first book, bcos i need to concentrate a lot harder in order to follow.

I hope u dont mind me using another reader as example, David Barnes, whose clear and slow-paced reading of Book 3 of this work is tremendously enjoyable and helpful:
http://librivox.org/the-sayings-of-confucius-by-confucius/

To me personally, David Barnes' reading stood out among the rest of the readers of that book.

He would pause after every paragraph/saying, which is tremendously helpful bcos of the nature of the work - basically a book of 'proverbs', in a way. so, u need to THINK and DIGEST after every saying. his slow pace and pausing allow me to do that, even though his accent is not exactly "Queen's English".

So, I would like to suggest that all librivox readings of non-fiction, especially philosophical and theoretical works such as the above, should have a SLOW pace and an a pause after every paragraph. After all, the purpose of reading non-fiction is to acquire the knowledge in the books - rather than only hearing the facts, as in a fiction - which would not be achieved by a fast-paced reading, which is the equivalent of 'quick browsing'. Maximum benefit would not be gained by that...

I know, if the above suggestion of slow paced reading is followed, the size of files would increase a great deal. However, to fully achieve/not to defeat the purpose, I think it would be worth it. At least for important works anyway.

Thanks again!!

JL

Jc said...

Hi JL,
Thank you very much for your comments. They are always appreciated.

I do understand what you mean by the fast pace. I am a fan of David's recordings myself (D.E. Wittkower's are also great) and have been trying to match their reading. Unfortunately it's very hard to fight my natural tendency to speak fast (and mumble a bit).

Thank you very much for taking the time to write. I'll definitely work harder on enunciation and pace.

Jc :)

Anonymous said...

I listened to "Venus in Furs" recently, and I enjoyed your reading. While the translation was very accessible, I still find that it's easier to understand older works if I'm listening to them, so I really appreciate your effort on this work.

I wish you had more English recordings :)

-corinna (I also read for Librivox!)

sfitzjohn said...

Merci de votre enregistrement du livre "Les Trois Mousquetaires". Quelle belle voix! C'était le premier livre audio de LV que j'ai écouté et c'était un immense plaisir. Je vais essayer de devenir lecteur pour LV. Merci pour cette inspiration. - Steve (Edmonton)

Chris said...

I'm not trying to be mean, but it's going to come off that way. I really don't think you should be reading books in English because of your accent and unusual pronunciation of many common words. It was actually you that drove me to give up on listening to "Monte Cristo" and just read the rest as a book. Now I'm listening to "Karamazov", and just realized you are reading the last part of the book. I tried listening to it, but I just can't. It drives me nuts. You're reading like the the last 3 hours of the book, and I feel like you've basically ruined it for me as an audiobook. Please stop reading audiobooks in English. Sorry for the rudeness, but it's really bad.

Anonymous said...

Please, please don't read audiobooks in English anymore. Your accent and unusual pronunciation ruin the enjoyment for me. I'm on my second book that you've read now, and it drives me to the library to get a paper copy. Please don't do this anymore, you aren't helping the world by doing this.

Anonymous said...

We appreciated "your accent and unusual pronunciation" in your wonderful reading of Two Years in the Forbidden City.
Your voice has a unique mixture of calmness and confidence
Looking forward to more in English- we both had Spanish at school - c'est dommage!
A US midwest fan and an Irish fan.

Jc said...

Thank you very much for your nice words!

I wish I could read more books these days, but I've been pretty busy with school, and now I'm doing an internship, so I have virtually no time. :(

Sebastian Lopez-Velasquez said...

Thanks for "Le Compte de Monte Cristo" You have a new fan in Brooklyn, NY.

Pascale said...

Je viens de terminer d'écouter le Comte de Monte-Cristo et j'ai vraiment apprécié votre travail. Bonne interprétation et belle diction pour un livre aussi long. It's also great to listen to someone with a very international accent (thank you Québec for that)looking forward to listening to more of your work

Anonymous said...

Thank you for contributing your time and talent to Librivox. You have a wonderful voice. I could listen to you read a dry legal document or a telephone directory. I find reading difficult (bad eyes) and appreciate your effort!

Unknown said...

JC, je voulais vous remercier énormément pour le temps et l'effort vous avez passé à enregistrer ces bouquins audio pour nous au site librivox.org. J'ai écouté à au moins ~6 livres-audios maintenant et j'ai fait bcp de progrès avec ma compréhension de français grâce à vous. Merci bcp! Je vous envoyerais des fleurs et du chocolat donne la chance! :). J'ai écouté à plusieurs séries de romans anglophones à audible.com et vous relevez d'un qualité *professional*, franchement...

- Darin

Unknown said...

Le monde est petit! J'ai demenage de Montreal (apres avoir ete pendant 6 ans) a New York. J'ai commence a ecouter des recordings librivox puis je tombe sur un qui est francais, et avec un petit accent Quebecois! (Tres subtile)
Merci, il est tres bien presente et tres clair. Je l'ecoute pendant le jogging. Bon travail!

Jc said...

Merci pour les commentaires! Le monde est petit en effet!

Unknown said...

J'ai découvert les 3 mousquetaires grâce à votre interprétation du texte. c'était un véritable plaisir car vous donnez vie au récit sans en faire trop (c'est à dire sans lasser l'auditeur en cas de jeu d'acteur trop marqué) Un excellent travail qui a rendu mes long trajet en voiture bien trop court! Je vois que vous êtes du Canada mais j'étais bien incapable de dire d'où vous étiez en vous écoutant, votre accent est clair, je pourrais le qualifier d'assez "international". Un merci de France

Jc said...

Merci pour vos beaux commentaires! Ça fait toujours plaisir de voir que les gens écoutent nos enregistrements, même après tant d'années!

Anonymous said...

HI JC,

Just wanted to say that I am just in the last hour of The Brothers Karamazov, and I end each chapter hoping that you are going to be reading the next one!

You have a very soothing voice, and it makes listening to a rather intense book very easy.

Regards,
Matthew

Adam said...

Hi JC!
I'm a big fan of your Librivox recordings, and I've incorporated some of them (Verlaine and Sacher-Masoch) into songs I've recorded. I'd like to share them with you to get your blessing.

Of Venus in Furs - https://on.soundcloud.com/oXp4G
Campo de Pluma - https://on.soundcloud.com/i89Wf

Please let me know what you think!
Thanks for the readings,
Adam