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Spanish Reader recommendations | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes |  | |
| SimonD Newbie United Kingdom Joined 5276 days ago 6 posts - 6 votes Studies: Spanish | Message 1 of 11 01 August 2011 at 9:47am | IP Logged |
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Hello
I've been learning Spanish now for about 8 months and so far have completed the Pimsleur series 1 - 3 and the Michel Thomas Complete Course. I would like to improve my reading skills so I've been looking into Spanish Readers. So far I've found the following: First Spanish Reader by Flores and Angel Flores Easy Spanish Reader (Easy Reader Series) by William T. Tardy Spanish Short Stories: Cuentos En Espanol by John R King I've read the reviews of these books on Amazon and all seem to be quite well received. Can anybody recommend any others that might be useful to me? Thanks Simon 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| dbag Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5022 days ago 605 posts - 1046 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 2 of 11 01 August 2011 at 10:11am | IP Logged |
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I have both Easy Spanish Reader (Easy Reader Series) by William T. Tardy and Spanish Short Stories: Cuentos En Espanol by John R King.
The Tardy reader is very good for reading practice, it is graded, so starts off quite easy and gradually becomes more difficult. The only criticism I would make of it is that the content is quite dull. The king book consists of short stories in Spanish, side by side with English translations. Personally, I find the level of Spanish inside this book very difficult.Certainly not a beginners book. Take a look at the following link: https://www.eurobooks.co.uk/languagebooks/subject/SPA/m4/c21 /6 (Sorry, I dont know how to make it clickable) About 3 pages of graded readers, many of which are aimed at specific cfr levels. I havent tried any of these let, but im going to. Some of these look fantastic. For example theres a series of national geographic articles in Spanish, which look quite good, and several of the books come with a CD. There are also 2 good readers free online at the following links: http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/15353 http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/22065 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| SimonD Newbie United Kingdom Joined 5276 days ago 6 posts - 6 votes Studies: Spanish | Message 3 of 11 01 August 2011 at 12:30pm | IP Logged |
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Hi dbag
Thanks for the reply. I will investigate the graded readers on the eurobooks site and thanks for the heads up regarding the difficulty of the John R King book. Simon 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| chrisphillips71 Groupie United States Joined 5236 days ago 64 posts - 86 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 4 of 11 01 August 2011 at 2:36pm | IP Logged |
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McGraw Hill produces a series of bilingual readers that is very good. Included in the
series is Stories from Spain, Stories from Latin America, Stories from Cuba, Stories from Mexico, and Stories from Puerto Rico. The added bonus is that you can go to their website (mhprofessional.com) and download the audio for some of the stories. I really enjoy bilingual readers, so if anybody has more suggestions, I would love to hear about them. Chris Phillips 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Random review Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5783 days ago 781 posts - 1310 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Portuguese, Mandarin, Yiddish, German | Message 5 of 11 01 August 2011 at 9:10pm | IP Logged |
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@dbag, hi, here is your
link in clickable form. If you click on the little planet symbol next to the u you can post your links. Nice post. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Splog Diglot Senior Member Czech Republic anthonylauder.c Joined 5669 days ago 1062 posts - 3263 votes Speaks: English*, Czech Studies: Mandarin | Message 6 of 11 01 August 2011 at 9:28pm | IP Logged |
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Not sure if this will be too simple for you, but my favourite book for learning to read
spanish is: Spanish for Reading This book took me from "zero" to "comfortable" reading Spanish, in about six month, working very slowly though the book (much less than an hour a day). 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| dbag Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5022 days ago 605 posts - 1046 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 7 of 11 02 August 2011 at 1:04am | IP Logged |
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@Random Review Thanks!
I also forgot about "better reading Spanish" by Jean Yates. The back cover states that the book is for the advanced beginner or intermediate level. Well, Ive pretty much finished Assimil with ease, pimsleur 1 and 2, MT, some fsi and LSLC, and to be honest I find a lot of the selections difficult. Very good book though, covers things like food, music politics etc, and the readings in each section get more difficult as one progresse's. TBH, I havent given this book much time let, but I think its going to be useful. @splog What is "Spanish for reading" like? It is a pity that theres no "look in this book section". An Amazon review mentions needing to spend 80 to 120 hours with the book, and that it offers around 2000 words of new vocab. If so then that is quite substantitive, and I might well buy it! Edited by dbag on 02 August 2011 at 1:07am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| fiziwig Senior Member United States Joined 4865 days ago 297 posts - 618 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 8 of 11 02 August 2011 at 8:42am | IP Logged |
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I found Easy Spanish reader (Tardy) to be very useful BUT, and this is a big but, I started it after I'd been casually studying Spanish for about 4 weeks, and finished it, cover to cover, in 8 days. It's that easy for absolute beginners.
Judging from what you listed as your level of experience in Spanish I think you will find Easy Spanish Reader useless. It's far too simple for you. Check Project Gutenberg (Google it) for a large collection of Spanish language books, including elementary readers, that can be downloaded for free. And if you have a Kindle you can download the Kindle version for free too. I downloaded "An Elementary Spanish Reader" by E. S. HARRISON and "A First Spanish Reader" by Roessler and Remy. The first is VERY elementary and starts out with the story of Chicken Little and the Sky is Falling, and the second is about on the same level as Easy Spanish Reader. Both may be too easy for you. But it costs nothing to download them, and if they are too easy, just delete the files. Then again, you can always download Don Quijote, or any one of several other famous Spanish novels for free from Gutenberg. --gary 1 person has voted this message useful |
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