The Tuesday book club
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. In the bookshop on the corner there is a book club that meets on Tuesday evenings, and I have been going for two years.…
Text
- En la librería de la esquina hay un club de lectura que se reúne los martes por la tarde, y llevo dos años yendo. Somos ocho, y no hay dos que lean igual: una viene por el argumento, otro por cómo está escrito, y hay quien viene por el café. El mes pasado leímos una novela corta de una escritora gallega, y por primera vez nadie estuvo de acuerdo con nadie. A mí lo que más me gustó fue la protagonista, una mujer de pueblo que se va a la capital a los diecinueve años. A dos les pareció lenta, y una lo dijo con una cita del propio libro, lo cual me pareció bastante gracioso. Lo bueno del club no es la novela, sino oír cómo siete personas han leído un libro distinto con las mismas páginas delante. La semana que viene toca teatro, y por lo visto es una obra que también han estrenado en el cine.In the bookshop on the corner there is a book club that meets on Tuesday evenings, and I have been going for two years. We are eight, and no two of us read the same way: one comes for the plot, another for how it is written, and someone for the coffee. Last month we read a short novel by a Galician writer, and for the first time nobody agreed with anybody. What I liked most was the heroine, a village woman who leaves for the capital at nineteen. Two found the novel slow, and one said so with a quote from the book itself, which I found quite funny. The good thing about the club is not the novel, but hearing how seven people read a different book with the same pages in front of them. Next week it is the theater's turn, and apparently this play has also been made into a film.
Comprehension questions
The questions are asked in Russian on purpose: we test your understanding of the text, not your ability to read the question.
- Where does the club meet?
- What happened last month for the first time?
- What did the narrator like the most?
- What does the narrator consider the main thing about the club?
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.