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Reading level Harry Potter 2 | ||
Tags: CEFR Language Levels | Reading | ||
 Language Learning Forum : Books, Literature & Reading |  | |
| guiguixx1 Octoglot Senior Member Belgium guillaumelp.wordpres Joined 4090 days ago 163 posts - 207 votes  Speaks: French*, English, Dutch, Portuguese, Esperanto, German, Italian, Spanish Studies: Polish, Mandarin | Message 1 of 13 13 July 2014 at 12:38am | IP Logged | ||
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Hi all,
I hope I'm in the right section. Please move this post if it is not at the right place. This is maybe a silly question, but I'm reading Harry Potter 2 in Spanish, after reading the 1st one, and I was wondering what level (A1, A2, ...) it equals. I don't understand all the words, but my knowledge is good enough to understand more or less everything that happens. I just look up a word or two in the dictionary when words come back often, to study new words. As far as the reading level is concerned, is it possible to guess what level this equals? Thanks in advance 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6595 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 2 of 13 13 July 2014 at 2:22am | IP Logged | ||
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Have you read the books in a stronger language before? Have you seen the movies?
Also, CEFR requires understanding a variety of texts. It's possible to fail an A2 or B1 exam despite being able to read HP :) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| James29 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5373 days ago 1265 posts - 2113 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French | Message 3 of 13 13 July 2014 at 2:36am | IP Logged | ||
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I'd say it is in the B1 or B2 range. Definitely harder than A2 and definitely easier than C1.
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
 emk Diglot Moderator United States Joined 5530 days ago 2615 posts - 8806 votes Speaks: English*, FrenchB2 Studies: Spanish, Ancient Egyptian Personal Language Map | Message 4 of 13 13 July 2014 at 4:03am | IP Logged | ||
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It sort of depends how you chose the book.
- If you can just pick up any book like Harry Potter, and read it pretty comfortably, with solid understanding, that's probably in the neighborhood of B2 reading comprehension. Though I'm guessing that as a French speaker, you may have an advantage. - If you've already read Harry Potter a zillion times in other languages, and if you just read book 1 in Spanish, then you could probably understand it pretty well as early as A2. Basically, your prior knowledge of the series and the vocabulary you learned in the first book can give you a huge boost. This kind of artificial comprehension boost is actually super useful: If you just keep reading, you'll be able to "lock in" a lot of that boosted comprehension, and afterwards, you'll be able to transfer it to less familiar books. Seriously, this is one of my favorite tricks. Edited by emk on 13 July 2014 at 4:06am 11 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| guiguixx1 Octoglot Senior Member Belgium guillaumelp.wordpres Joined 4090 days ago 163 posts - 207 votes Speaks: French*, English, Dutch, Portuguese, Esperanto, German, Italian, Spanish Studies: Polish, Mandarin | Message 5 of 13 13 July 2014 at 12:46pm | IP Logged | ||
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Serpent: I have read HP2 also in Dutch and English, and have seen the movies, so yes, I know the story pretty much by heart, which indeed makes the understanding easier (although this sort of story is still easy to follow)
Thanks James29 :) emk: The fact that I am native in French does indeed help of course. a part of the vocabulary being very close, there are words that I guess without knowing them at the beginning, and the grammar is very similar (word order for example) This trick that you use is indeed also something I use and find very helpful. It enables me to read books in the target language even with a low level in the language. I even consider to begin and try reading HP1 in German although I haven't studied it very much (but my knowledge in Dutch helps a lot to understand German of course) As I read HP a bit every day now, I find the level easier as the days go by. I now consider trying reading "cien años de soledad" by Gabriel García Márquez, to try an unknown story, written by a native Spanish writer, and with a a lot more difficult level (or at least that's what I suppose). With a bit of luck I will reach B2-C1 if I can read it and follow it to the end 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Jeffers Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4907 days ago 2151 posts - 3960 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Hindi, Ancient Greek, French, Sanskrit, German | Message 6 of 13 13 July 2014 at 7:17pm | IP Logged | ||
I suspect that your question implies that you are using the book to judge your level, especially since you write in your second post:
Being able to read a B2 books doesn't make you B2. Reading many, many B2 books is one good way to get there, but reading and finishing a single book (or even a few) won't get you there. If you are serious about getting to B2-C1 in Spanish, may I suggest that you have a look at the Super Challenge, and think about signing up. http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?T ID=38652&PN=1 The basic idea is that you read 100 books and watch 100 films in 20 months. A "book" is defined as 50 pages of reading (so Harry Potter counts as quite a few books), and a "film" is defined as 90 minutes of watching (although audiobooks, podcasts, etc, also count). Two and a half months have already gone, but even if you finish half the challenge, you'll find quite a boost in your comprehension, so it's never too late to sign up! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| guiguixx1 Octoglot Senior Member Belgium guillaumelp.wordpres Joined 4090 days ago 163 posts - 207 votes Speaks: French*, English, Dutch, Portuguese, Esperanto, German, Italian, Spanish Studies: Polish, Mandarin | Message 7 of 13 13 July 2014 at 7:48pm | IP Logged | ||
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Jeffers: Thank you for your advice :)
I have already considered signing up for the Super Challenge, but since I do not have much free time at the university, and since I try to read in every language that I use and study (which is, for now, more or less 5), it is difficult to read 5000 pages in one single language. I now have enough time because the school year is over, but in 2 months I'm not really sure about that :/ Or do you propose that I focus mainly on one language to pratice most? I still have a lot of reading in French, Dutch and English (I study languages at the university) so this already takes some time. I can therefore hardly read ONLY in one target language... 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Jeffers Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4907 days ago 2151 posts - 3960 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Hindi, Ancient Greek, French, Sanskrit, German | Message 8 of 13 13 July 2014 at 7:50pm | IP Logged | ||
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There is nothing wrong with signing up for a few, even if you don't have enough time to finish them all. The twitter bot will help you keep track of your reading, and even if you don't finish any of them, you will have made some good progress.
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