in Spanish texts
Short in Spanish texts with a translation alongside and comprehension questions. Levels A1–A2: a stock of two or three hundred everyday words is already enough. The translation stands next to it whole, not word by word — a dictionary is still too early at this level: stopping at every other word tears the sentence apart.
All texts
- 📖An ordinary dayA1 · Good morning. My name is Marta and I live in Valencia. In the morning I drink coffee and…
- 📖At the marketA2 · On Saturday I go to the market with my family. It is close to home, ten minutes on foot.…
- 📖The Saturday shoppingA2 · On Saturdays I go to the supermarket with a small basket. I always look at the price tag…
- 📖The new apartmentA2 · My apartment is on the third floor, and the elevator has not worked since January. The…
- 📖A bad weekA2 · On Monday I got up with a fever and a sore throat. I went to the pharmacy and bought…
- 📖August in the northA2 · In July Madrid is an oven: it is hot both day and night. That is why in August we go to…
- 📖Papers and the officeA2 · My first day at the office was in January. The boss explained the schedule to me and gave…
- 📖A layover in BarcelonaA2 · My flight to Rome had a layover in Barcelona of only fifty minutes. At check-in they told…
- 📖The island oppositeA2 · From the beach you can see a small island with two palm trees and a cave. On Sunday we…
- 📖Two T-shirts and a sweaterA2 · I went to buy clothes for the trip and left the store with less than I planned. The green…
- 📖The neighbor on the fifth floorA2 · The neighbor on the fifth floor is an elderly woman, calm and very kind. Last month we…
- 📖Friday dinnerA2 · On Fridays I cook, and always the same thing: potatoes in the oven and fish in the frying…
- 📖Forty unread messagesA2 · On Sunday I left my phone at my sister's place and did not think about it until the…
- 📖The repair shop on the cornerA2 · The washing machine broke on Thursday, and the water reached the hallway. I called the…
- 📖A concert in the squareA2 · Every summer there is a free concert in the square by the town hall, and this year a…
- 📖Thursday's processionA2 · In my city Holy Week begins on Thursday, when the bells of all the churches ring. The…
- 📖The grandparents' courtyardA2 · My grandparents' house is small: two bedrooms, a kitchen and a courtyard with a blue…
- 📖This year's scheduleA2 · This year's class schedule is worse than last year's: we start at eight and finish at…
- 📖The household budgetA2 · Since January we have written down all our expenses in a notebook, and the very first…
- 📖Two nights in the hospitalA2 · My mother fell on the staircase in the entrance hall and was taken by ambulance to the…
- 📖Read the contract before signingA2 · My sister signed the work contract without reading it in full, and two months later a…
- 📖The furniture in the new apartmentA2 · The apartment we rented came furnished, but the furniture was left over from the…
- 📖Two hundred kilometers of curvesA2 · We rented a small car to go up to the mountain villages, and the road turned out to be…
- 📖A thousand followers and not one commentB1 · My sister opened a profile to sell her ceramics, and at first she posted one photo a day.…
- 📖A police report for the bicycleB1 · On Saturday morning my bicycle was stolen from the entrance hall, although it was locked…
- 📖I am not sure of anythingB1 · For three weeks I have been turning the same decision over in my head and I am still not…
- 📖The day everything broke downA2 · First, at seven in the morning, the power went out — just when I was making breakfast.…
- 📖The neighbor on the fifth floorA2 · The neighbor on the fifth floor is an elderly man, tall and gray-haired, with enormous…
- 📖Two months without speakingB1 · Marta and I had been friends for fifteen years, and for two months we did not speak over…
- 📖The Sunday mealA2 · On Sundays my father cooks, and always the same thing: rice with chicken and a salad of…
- 📖The January salesB1 · In January I went to the shopping center for boots and came back with two things I did…
- 📖The washing machine from the apartment aboveA2 · The washing machine first started making a strange noise during the spin cycle, and a…
- 📖My grandfather's vegetable gardenA2 · My grandfather had a small vegetable garden on the outskirts of the village, between a…
- 📖The uptown neighborhoodB1 · I live in a neighborhood on the outskirts, twenty minutes from the center by bus. It used…
- 📖Five months of SpanishB1 · I started learning Spanish on my own, with a dictionary and a pocket grammar, and after…
- 📖The village houseA2 · My grandmother was born in a village on the plain and spent her whole childhood and youth…
- 📖The art of saying noB1 · When I arrived in Spain I thought speaking directly was the most polite thing, and I…
- 📖My grandfather's workshopA2 · My grandfather was a carpenter all his life and never wanted to work in a factory. He…
- 📖The small printB1 · I signed the apartment contract without reading the last two pages, and it cost me eight…
- 📖The neighborhood that learned to recycleB1 · Ten years ago my neighborhood had a single container, and half of the garbage ended up on…
- 📖The Tuesday book clubB1 · In the bookshop on the corner there is a book club that meets on Tuesday evenings, and I…
- 📖The neighborhood raceA2 · Every year, on the first Sunday of October, there is a five-kilometer fun run in my…
- 📖The bridge the children measureA2 · In my village's school there is a custom that began twenty years ago: eleven-year-old…
- 📖The January fluA2 · In January the whole household caught it, except my grandmother — the only one who had…
- 📖The night of San JuanA2 · On the night of June twenty-fourth my whole village goes down to the beach and lights…
- 📖The tree in the courtyardB1 · In my building we have spent two years arguing about a tree in the courtyard, and the…
- 📖If I had knownB1 · Six years ago I was offered a position in another city, and within two days I turned it…
- 📖The box of broken thingsA2 · In my parents' house there is a cardboard box where everything that breaks and that…
- 📖The shortcut that was not a shortcutB1 · On the map the village was four kilometers away in a straight line and almost ten by the…
- 📖The building's accountsB1 · At this year's meeting the manager handed out a sheet with the building's expenses, and…
- 📖Starting from zero at fortyB1 · When the factory closed, my uncle was forty-two and had a trade that was needed nowhere…
- 📖Measuring the noiseB1 · For years the neighbors on my street said the noise from the terrace below was…
- 📖My grandmother's streetA2 · My grandmother lived seventy years on the same street and said she had seen three eras…
- 📖The river that came backB1 · For twenty years the river flowing through my city was almost an open sewer, and nobody…
- 📖The night shiftB1 · I came to the factory at nineteen, as a fill-in, to cover the summer vacations in the…
- 📖The night of the blackoutB1 · Here is what happened: it was Tuesday, we were having dinner, and suddenly the power went…
- 📖The neighbor on the third floorB1 · The neighbor on the third floor had a reputation as an unpleasant man, and for two years…
How to read a text in a language you barely know
First pass — all the way through, without peeking at the translation. The goal is not to understand but to catch familiar words: there will be more of them than you expect, and that feeling matters more than any rule.
Second pass — with the translation beside you. Now it becomes clear what exactly was in the way: an unknown word, a construction you did not get, or just reading speed.
Third pass — all the way through again. The second pass brings noticeably more, and this step is what makes reading useful: it turns analysis into recognition.
Frequently asked
What level do you need to read texts in Spanish?
A1–A2: you know the letters and have a stock of everyday words — about two or three hundred. The translation sits next to it, so an unknown word does not stop the reading.
How many times should you reread the text?
Three times: without the translation, with it, and without it again. The third pass is what all of this is for — the second time you recognize noticeably more.