Readers in European languages

With the help of community members, RUMACCC has translated a selection of the early readers into European languages: German, Irish, Italian, Polish, Slovene and Spanish (which, of course, is also a major language of Latin America).

If you are able to help us with translations into further languages please get in touch by email.

German is the official or co-official language of Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg and Belgium and has official status in the Italian province of South Tyrol/Alto Adige. It is the first language of over 90 million people worldwide and is widely used and learned as an additional language. In Australia, just under 80,000 people speak it at home (Census 2016).

Advanced reader

In addition to Standard German, which varies slightly in Germany, Austria and Switzerland, spoken German comes in many different dialects. Therefore, our ‘Chicken Little’ reader has been translated not only into Standard German, but also into a Swiss dialect and into the Austrian dialect of Vorarlberg.

Irish (sometimes also called Gaelic) is a Celtic language from Ireland. It is the national and first official language of the Republic of Ireland and is officially recognised in Northern Ireland.

Irish was the principal language of most Irish people until the late 18th century. Today it is still used as a primary language in rural and remote areas of western Ireland and it is taught in all public schools of the Republic. According to the Irish census of 2016 about 1.76 million people (39.8%) claim to be able to speak Irish and about 73,800 speak the language every day.

In Australia, 2.39 million people claim Irish ancestry, but only 1,946 indicate that they speak Irish at home (2016 census).

The readers come in Gaelic typeface (Bunchlo Arsa GC) and in Roman typeface (Arial Unicode MS). They were translated by Lonán Ó Lorgnáin who also recorded the sound files available from the table below.

Level 1

Italian is a Romance language of the Indo-European language family and the main language of Italy. Worldwide there are approximately 85 million speakers of Italian. In Australia, Italian was for many years the most frequently spoken language other than English (LOTE). In the 2016 Census, 271,597 people indicated that they speak Italian at home, which makes it the 5th most frequently spoken LOTE.

We are very pleased to make these readers available not only in monolingual and bilingual versions but also as audiobooks, read by Riccardo Amorati.

For best results, please download the audiobooks from the links below and open with Acrobat Reader (pdf) or PowerPoint (ppt).

Level 1

Level 2

Polish, a West Slavic language, is the official language of Poland. An estimated 40.25 million people world-wide speak Polish (Ethnologue 2016).

48,677 people born in Poland live in Australia, over 170,000 claim Polish ancestry and 50,595 speak Polish at home (Census 2011). One of them, Kasia Williams, has translated a selection of our readers into Polish.

Advanced reader

Slovene or Slovenian is a South Slavic language and the official language of Slovenia. It is spoken by approximately 2.5 million people worldwide.

Apart from Slovenia, it is also spoken in Italy (particularly in the region of Friuli Venezia Giulia), in Austria (where it is recognised as an official language in the state of Carinthia and as a minority language in Styria), Croatia and Hungary.

In Australia 4,088 people indicated in the 2016 census that they speak Slovene at home.

Level 1

Spanish (or Castilian, Castellano) is a Romance language originally from the Iberian peninsula which has become a truly global language. Close to 500 million people speak it as their first language and many more as a second or additional language. It is an official language in 20 countries, mainly in Latin America and, of course, in Spain.

In Australia, 140,817 people indicated in the 2016 census that they speak Spanish at home.

Level 1