Spoken English Example Recordings and Videos for Language Study

English language auditory learning resources with descriptions, commentary and difficulty rankings.

The object of education is to prepare the young to educate themselves throughout their lives. - Robert M. Hutchins

One of difficulties many students of English have is distinguishing good language from bad. While the Internet contains vast and wonderful resources for auditory language study, the majority of recordings do not use language that would be considered acceptable for college entry exams or college work (See: examples of SAT grammar rule violations found in educational websites). unfortunately, most students of the English language are not well equipped to distinguish between good and bad examples. These pages reflect our efforts at Abacus Educational Services to provide our students with well-selected auditory English examples together with commentary. Many of these are drawn from online sources; some we have created ourselves.

On these pages, is a short collection of English language example videos which use English on the very highest level.

Spoken English Examples: Lectures: Chosen from many sources specifically for their use of language. Many university professors do not express themselves well and often commit common grammar and stylistic errors in their unscripted speech. Some speakers, however, do produce superbly crafted prose which no editor could improve upon. We have attempted to find these.
Spoken English Examples: Audio Books: This is material which has gone through an editorial process which has, in theory, eliminated any grammatical and stylistic errors. There remains, however, a wide array of styles from the superb to the barely literate. We have made an effort to find those examples which demonstrate the use of English as an art form, recordings which, if listened to repeatedly, cannot fail to improve the listener's understanding and appreciation of well-crafted English.
Spoken English Examples: Children's Audio Books: This is the audio counterpart to our Children's Book page, which strives to provide access to children's literature which demonstrates the best possible use of English expression.