I am hoping you can comment on some of these audio books and which use modern language, as opposed to old language used to reflect the time/context of the story.

Thanks!

そして、おめでとうございます、toadhoさん。よくがんばったんですね。

アメリカ人だけど、フランス語で外国語を勉強する事のブログを書くつもりです。いつからまだわかりませんけど、きっとできると思います。

In English: Alice in Wonderland? In Japanese!
Wow, thank you so much!

Congratulations, toadho! You kick ass. =P (=P for the silly English translation)

I’m an American, but I plan to start a language-learning blog in French. I don’t yet know when I’ll start, but I’m sure I can do it.

やった！I just finished Heisig Vol. 1!　Took me a little under two months (my goal was actually to finish by the end of this month, but I started speeding up when I could tell the end was near…) I definitely don’t have them all “in my head” yet, and I probably (mmm…make that definitely) need to touch up a few of my stories, but Anki should take care of most of that within the next few months as long as I continue to do my reps.

Anyway, I have a few questions/comments, I might shoot you an e-mail sometime in the near future. And thank you for the inspiration!

If it makes you feel better, they really help beginners. Your Japanese is really awesome (obviously). You are a huge inspiration.

Any who, on a less melodramatic note, I posted the link to your blog on another site (one of the learn Japanese in 5 minutes sites) and they said that you were just “posting amazon links to pimp readers money”. Yes, they actually said “pimp”. Even if you were a complete fake, I wouldn’t care, because your advice is so useful.

I realize why you recommended staying away from internet forums now….
Anyways, keep up the good work.

there are some audio podcasts with transcripts over at lingq . check out the chinese section. i just listened to a podcast about the sichuan earthquake, and there’s an exact transcript for it on the site.