Hello from Leusden (Netherlands)

dionyxus · Post by **dionyxus** » March 14th, 2006, 1:25 pm

Hi folks!

I'm Richard van Schaik and I'm 15 years old. I just discovered this site after it was mentioned in an audio book that I had download from a torrent site. I just wanted to thank you for recording all the books! If there's someone willing to record a Dutch book with me, I'll be hapy to give something back to the community. I'll also try to promote this site at my school, because it can help you to easily improve your English skills without an effort!

(I apologize for my bad English)

vee · Post by **vee** » March 14th, 2006, 1:57 pm

Your english reads fine to me! Glad to have you here. I'm sure there is room and eventual volunteers for a dutch book. If you want to test out your equipment, maybe you can find a PD dutch poem to do?

Well if you have any other questions let us know. Rayner will probably be able to get you better info on recording a dutch book.

Chris

ChipDoc · Post by **ChipDoc** » March 14th, 2006, 5:44 pm

Welcome to LibriVox, dionyxus! Thanks for mentioning that you heard about us from a Torrent download. We don't get much feedback on those things and it's good to know that folks are hearing them.

We're happy to read the books - everyone here really has a passion for the spoken word and we'd be happy to have you join us. We have readers from all over the world and whether you'd like to read in English or in Dutch your contribution would be welcome.

In fact, I'm really excited about the possibility of getting some Dutch works read here on LibriVox. The trick is finding one. Because our servers are in the US, we need to hew tightly to US Copyright Law and can only read texts which are in the Public Domain. Most of the info can be found here on the LibriVox Wiki:
http://librivox.org/wiki/moin.cgi/

Pay particular attention to the section on Copyright & Public Domain in the second section. The gist of it is that if you can find it on Project Gutenberg, then we can host it here at LibriVox. On that score we're in luck because there's a LOT of Dutch work already listed in their Catalog:
http://www.gutenberg.org/browse/languages/nl

Just pick something out and give it a try. Try to keep the first ones short; it's a lot easier to get used to LibriVox with a short piece than with a long one. It's great to have you here, dionyxus - it's always nice to hear a fresh voice in the mix!

Bronwyn Kate · Post by **Bronwyn Kate** » March 14th, 2006, 6:05 pm

Hi Richard.

Do you have something interesting in Dutch you could read to us? Like a poem or short story?

Nice to meet you on Librivox and I hope your classmates enjoy it too. Maybe they were some of the 143 visitors we seemed to have mysteriously.

kayray · Post by **kayray** » March 14th, 2006, 6:50 pm

Hi Richard! I'm eager to hear a Dutch recording, so I hope you'll contribute a poem or something! Let us know if you have any questions. I hope you and your classmates continue to enjoy our recordings :)

dionyxus · Post by **dionyxus** » March 14th, 2006, 11:23 pm

I just looked at gutenberg for a short-story/poem, but everything on gutenberg is writting in very old Dutch.
No one want's to listen to that voluntarily, unless you're a Dutch teacher or something like that.

Bronwyn Kate · Post by **Bronwyn Kate** » March 14th, 2006, 11:45 pm

Somebody said that about Japanese - the very old Japanese.

I like linguistic history. Don't you dampen that, young man.

How different is very old Dutch from modern Dutch? We all love Chaucer and Shakespeare and they are written in Middle English. And we love Beowulf too. He is written in Old english but that doesn't make him any less of a devil.

dionyxus · Post by **dionyxus** » March 15th, 2006, 5:02 am

Although they call Dutch since 1500 'new Dutch' there has changed a lot. If I read a book that was written 100 years ago, I can still recognize most of the words. But some words got a totally different meaning, and if you don't know the original meaning you'll probably think that the reader made some mistakes. Sometimes we read old poems at school, and without the teacher's help we don't understand what's written.

I think that there isn't much zest for an old Dutch audio book, but that's just my opinion.

ChipDoc · Post by **ChipDoc** » March 15th, 2006, 5:28 am

Wow, I had no idea that the language had changed that much. Spanish seems to have changed hardly at all since the 1500s. English from that period is a little strange, but generally readable.

Thanks for the insight, dionyxus. That's exactly why it's so great to have volunteers from many cultures.

kayray · Post by **kayray** » March 15th, 2006, 9:40 am

Bronwyn Kate wrote:Somebody said that about Japanese - the very old Japanese.

I like linguistic history. Don't you dampen that, young man.

How different is very old Dutch from modern Dutch? We all love Chaucer and Shakespeare and they are written in Middle English. And we love Beowulf too. He is written in Old english but that doesn't make him any less of a devil. :evil: :twisted:

Actually, Shakespeare is classified as Modern English, believe it or not! :)

Richard, keep hunting around... there's GOT to be some fun Dutch work that was written perhaps in 1910 or something... as long as it's pre-1923 I think we're safe. Maybe a classic children's story? Were Grimms' Fairy Tales translated into Dutch in the 19th century?