Great reading voice until he starts doing the voices of the characters. Some of them sound ridiculous

Great reading voice until he starts doing the voices of the characters. Some of them sound so ridiculous, it’s hard to concentrate or take it seriously. Hagrid to start. Or Dumbledore? Awful.

4 people found this helpful

Overall good, but a bit mumbly

The audio and the e-book differ every so slightly, which is annoying to follow a second language learner of French. The speed of narration is fast for me as a non-native speaker, but that's fine.

Overall, the acting is pretty good, but some of the characters he reads with a mumbled. bored, nasal voice which is unbelievably hard to understand. Ron and Neville come to mind, maybe Malfoy. I didn't feel like that added anything to the story.

18 people found this helpful

Very Difficult To Understand

So context, I am a fourth year university student (in Canada) taking French. I am fluent in French and fairly confident with my command of the language. That being said, I had a VERY difficult time understanding the narrator... Perhaps because I am not an native French speaker, but even with slowing down the narration I had such a difficult time understanding the voices. They seem mumbled, they seem too nasal and it causes me a lot of difficulty with this book.

I am hoping once I spend a little more time immersed in the French language I will be better equipped to understand that narration, but as someone who exclusively operates in the French language academically... I am not sure that that will happen any time soon.

Review:

As a native speaker, you will enjoy this book
As a language learner, you will probably have difficulty with this book

TIP: if you listen to this while reading a physical copy of the book, you will be able to better understand the narration.

27 people found this helpful

The narrator drove me nuts

What didn’t you like about Bernard Giraudeau’s performance?

First: he narrated wayyy too quickly. Second: I found myself adjusting the volume on my headphones far too often as he would go on long stretches of yelling (i.e., voicing Uncle Vernon) and whispering (i.e., voicing Peeves). Third: there were some painfully high-pitched female voices.

8 people found this helpful

Horrible Narrator

Am trying to learn Italian and French so was excited when the Harry Potter series came out in those languages. Unfortunately the narrator mangled the voices of almost every character to make their narration not only unintelligible, but occasionally downright painful. Yes, painful, stomach-churning pain trying to figure out who was talking and what was being said. The narrator was amazing when he wasn't doing the Dursleys or Hagrid -- I appreciated his effort in changing the tone and accent in order to portray the vast array of characters in the book, but it became overdone and over-the-top

6 people found this helpful

Fantastic book. Big challenge.

Well, it was a delight to listen to this book, it was also a big challenge. Harry Potter is the kind of book I will always read/listen no matter in what language I pick up. In this case, I choose french as an oportunity to pratice the language, but was very hard, I need to say. The narrative is faster than I was used to, and and sometimes was almost impossible to understand, as Hagrid for example. Was an exercise to come back again and again until I thought I got the meaning. After some chapters, I do not know if the narrative was slower if I got used to the pronunciation, but it was a easier to identify the text, but even so it was hard. I think so, It is almost an exercise in resistance. If you stop, you will never know what you are capable of.

6 people found this helpful

Bernard is annoying.

The narrator start well and then switch to acting for the worst. C'est dommage le début est bien. Mais la succession de personnages et de voix rendent le récit brouillon et parfois pénible à écouter.

2 people found this helpful

The narrator’s effusive style is distracting.

I imagine that if I were a french-speaking teenager, I’d find the narration exciting to listen to. Monsieur Giraudeau does distinctive voices for each character, and reads with much drama. But as a learner, I found this distracting.

2 people found this helpful

Don’t listen to with headphones

Too much voice acting, the voices for Ron and Hermione are terrible, he shouts and then talks quickly in an annoying character voice changing the pitch from high to low. Hard to understand the French eve for natives!

4 people found this helpful

Cannot Understand

I bought this book to practice my french listening skills, but honestly, the narrator goes way too hard on the voice-acting. It's impossible to understand at times at best and at worst you will be met with the shreeking voice of some character. Would not recommend.