Dual French text/sound files wanted!

Hi there,

Has anyone read Michal Ryszard Wojcik's diary regarding his 'norsk experiement'? [http://www.apronus.com/norsk/]
I stumbled across it last September and was so intrigued by the learning method he describes that I tried it myself.

I'm pleased to say it works. After about three weeks of constantly reading the five main articles and listening to their respective sound files on http://kasper.svev.no/svev.cfm?Lang=nb&kat=Samfunnslaere I was able to read and understand simple newspaper stories, gossip from the film website filmmagasinet.no, and other simple texts. A couple of weeks after that I started reading the book Naiv. Super., which I was able to understand fairly easily, especially after the first couple of chapters.

Anyway, I've decided to try to learn French using this method.

The reason for this posting is to ask if anyone knows of a website which, like the Norwegian website above, contains text and soundfiles of someone reading that text. I haven't studied French since high school, and that was only for two years. (I'm 29 now and grew up in Scotland, by the way.) I'm not terribly confident about my pronunciation. I wouldn't like to get into any bad habits from the start. That's why I really need dual text and sound, so I can hear exactly how it should be pronounced (assuming the accent of the speaker is considered standard).
I must stress it would ideally be fairly long texts/readings - not just simple words and phrases.

If anyone knows of anything that would be suitable I'd be grateful if you would post the url in a reply to this message.

Thanks,
Peter

Yes, I have read Michal's notes and found them very interesting. Please keep us posted on your progress.

There is not such a thing as a "standard" French accent, in the same way that there is no standard English accent. But I'll asume the accent you want to learn is the Parisian one.

I know a site about French accents. There are several texts with an audio version. However, most accents aren't Parisian, safe for those in the page improperly called "Français standard".
http://www.accents-de-france.fr.st/

This page may interst you as well. It is a very tongue-in-cheek text by a French radio journalist who has been "advised" to refute the slander that was made about his boss. A RealPlayer version comes with it and the accent of the reader is 100% Parisian.
http://acrimed.samizdat.net/article.php3?id_article=1441

I also know this website that provides tons of texts of poems with audio (Parisian accent). I find the tone of the reader very boring though because he's speaking so slowly.
http://www.wheatonma.edu/Academic/AcademicDept/French/ViveVoix/Resources/parauteur.html

If I find some more sites like these, I'll let you know.

By the way, I second Pentatonic's request! ;-)

I will gladly keep you posted on my progress, although I expect it to be very slow... Norwegian was surprisingly easy (the grammar is very similar to English, and the spelling similar to German, which I speak fairly well), but French will be a lot more difficult.

Lavoisel, I had a look at the French poems website. You're right, the speaker is noticeably slow, but that's good for me. However, some of the poets lived hundreds of years ago. Can you tell me if the poems by these older poets have been updated to modern spelling or if they're just printed in the old spelling?

SamHain,

no text has been updated, not even slightly. So I'd avise you to avoid all the poems prior to 1700 because you would find many weird spellings the likes of "bruyt" instead of "bruit" and "dictes" in place of "dites".
As for the "newer" texts, their orthography is up-to-date, still you may find a few archaic words here and there. Therefore, It's better not to learn the words which cannot be found in simple online dictionary like http://www.wordreference.com

Good luck ;-)