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For me Audio Books are someone reading a written book, word for word. Hörspiele are audio stories, not connected to a written book, almost like a podcast or audio story in you can find in meditation apps. They have been around in Germany for years - my husband and I listened to them on cassette tapes when we were little. It is often a series with the same characters - sometimes with the same person doing the different voices, other times with a cast of actors/actresses/sound bites so it sounds like a TV show. Benjamin Blümchen, Drei Fragezeichen, Kokonuss are all examples of Horspiele and I find them a super useful tool for exposing our kids to more German. They listen to them when playing Legos, in the car, before going to bed. Not sure if something like this exists in other languages!

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Aha. Sounds like some story podcasts targeted at kids - interesting that they have been around much longer than podcasts in Germany. Will look them up!

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Ici on aimerait bien enseigner le français à mon bébé qui est allemand, depuis que j’habite en Allemagne je ne parle plus très bien français, je n’ai personne avec qui échanger en français.

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Sariaka! Je comprends bien, c'est pas évident quand on n'a pas de francophones près de soi. La lecture peut être un bon moyen pour créer ces moments en famille :)

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We're using "hörspiele" with our 2 boys to get more German to them since we live in the US. Translation is "listening game" and it's an audio story - often series but it's not an audio book. Wondering if that exists in other languages. We access them through audible.de with German amazon.de account. Thank you so much for this post - it's hard to keep up with the language as they get older and for sure English becomes more dominant.

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Alex, I'm intrigued, how are Hörspiele different from audio books? And yes, I'm sure I can revisit all of this in a few years, when kids read independently.

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