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Listening to stories for children can be a great way to learn a language. I have found a wonderful website called StoryNory, which is full of recordings of children’s stories which you can listen to on the site, or download with an RSS feed. Many of the stories have a transcript or summary on the website, which will help you if there are bits that you cannot understand. The nice people at Storynory have said that I can link to one of their stories, so that you can listen to it here. And because I have just made a podcast about the word “bear”, I have chosen this story – Goldilocks and the Three Bears.

It is a traditional children’s story which is found in different forms in many parts of Europe. It is about a little girl who visits a house where three bears live. The three bears are out, so the little girl goes into the house, sits on the chairs, eats the bears’ food and falls asleep in the bedroom. In English, she is called Goldilocks, which means simply “the girl with golden hair” – “locks” means hair, especially long, curly hair.

You may ask yourself who is the villain and who is the hero in the story. Is Goldilocks the goodie? The children’s author Roald Dahl had no doubt that the three bears should have telephoned the police and had Goldilocks arrested.

Enjoy!

  

 Get MP3 (11 MB | 9:48 min)