English as She is Spoke: Free Audiobook and Listening Guide

English as She is Spoke, credited to Pedro Carolino, is available as a LibriVox volunteer audiobook. This guide identifies the recording, its source summary and its audio tracks.

About the work

The LibriVox catalogue summary, preserved with the recording, reads:

LibriVox recording of English as She is Spoke by Pedro Carolino. Read in English by J A Carter; Elsie Selwyn English as She is Spoke is a 19th century Portuguese-to-English phrasebook that has become a classic of absurdist humor, owing chiefly to the apparent fact that its writer had absolutely no knowledge of English. It is thought that for utterly obscure reasons its unknown author, Pedro Carolino, used a dictionary to translate Portuguese words to French, then a second dictionary to convert French to English, producing an incoherent but hilarious result. Mark Twain said of this book, "Nobody can add to the absurdity of this book, nobody can imitate it successfully, nobody can hope to produce its fellow; it is perfect." - Summary by J A Carter

Recording facts

• Recording title: English as She is Spoke
• Author credits: Pedro Carolino
• Language: English
• Original MP3 tracks: 4
• Listed recording duration: 1:03:29

Catalogue topics

• humor
• language
• English
• phrasebook
• Portuguese
• absurdity

Track guide

1. 00 - Introduction and Preface — 15:33
2. 01 - Vocabulary and Familiar Phrases — 14:05
3. 02 - Familiar Dialogues — 21:23
4. 03 - Familiar Letters, Anecdotes, Idiotisms, and Proverbs — 12:28

Listen to this recording

Open the complete recording and player on Internet Archive. The player includes the full track list and available download formats.

Source and rights

This is a record from LibriVox's official Internet Archive collection, with a public-domain licence recorded in its metadata. LibriVox's policy includes its catalogue summaries as well as its recordings. Its public-domain assessment follows United States law; copyright status can differ elsewhere. The summary and track facts are reproduced and reformatted from that record. Dates attached to the archive upload are not treated as original book publication dates.