Starting from zero at forty
A short in Spanish text at level B1. The translation sits next to it: reading with a dictionary is still too early at this level, and without support it will not happen at all. When the factory closed, my uncle was forty-two and had a trade that was needed nowhere anymore. For the first months…
Text
- Cuando cerraron la fábrica, mi tío tenía cuarenta y dos años y un oficio que ya no hacía falta en ningún sitio. Los primeros meses estuvo dando largas a todo: decía que iba a mirarlo, que ya se vería, que aún era pronto. Un día se puso a estudiar por las tardes, sin decírselo a nadie, y a los seis meses se presentó a un examen y lo superó. No fue un camino recto: dejó el curso dos veces, se hizo un lío con los papeles y estuvo a punto de rendirse en febrero. Lo que le sacó adelante no fue el talento, sino el empeño de ir todos los días, aunque fuera con las últimas fuerzas. Hoy repara instalaciones eléctricas y dice que lo difícil no fue aprender, sino aceptar que había que empezar desde cero. Cuando alguien de la familia se queja de que ya es tarde para cambiar, mi madre no discute: solo mira a su hermano.When the factory closed, my uncle was forty-two and had a trade that was needed nowhere anymore. For the first months he kept putting everything off: he said he would look into it, that he would see, that it was still early. One day he took up studying in the evenings without telling anyone, and six months later he went to an exam and passed it. The path was not straight: he quit the course twice, got tangled up in paperwork and almost gave up in February. What pulled him through was not talent, but the persistence of going every day, even on his last strength. Today he repairs electrical installations and says the hard thing was not learning, but accepting that he had to start from zero. When someone in the family complains that it is too late to change anything, my mother does not argue: she just looks at her brother.
Comprehension questions
The questions are asked in Russian on purpose: we test your understanding of the text, not your ability to read the question.
- What happened to the uncle?
- What did he do the first months?
- What pulled him through, in the narrator's opinion?
- What turned out to be the hardest?
Frequently asked
What level do you need to read this text in Spanish?
B1. That means: you know the letters and have a stock of everyday words — about two or three hundred.
How to read a text in an unfamiliar language usefully?
First all the way through without peeking at the translation — just to catch the familiar words. Then with the translation. Then all the way through again: the second pass brings noticeably more, and that feeling matters more than any rule.