The bridge the children measure
A short in Spanish text at level A2. 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 my village's school there is a custom that began twenty years ago: eleven-year-old pupils measure the old bridge.…
Text
- En el colegio de mi pueblo hay una costumbre que empezó hace veinte años: los alumnos de once años miden el puente viejo. Cada curso apunta la longitud, la anchura y la altura sobre el agua, y guarda la hoja en una carpeta de la biblioteca. Los primeros años lo hacían con una cuerda y un metro de carpintero, y las cifras no coincidían nunca del todo. Ahora usan un aparato que mide con luz, pero el maestro les obliga a comprobarlo a mano, con la cuerda de siempre. El año pasado descubrieron que el puente mide dos centímetros menos que en la primera medición, y hubo revuelo en clase. Vino un ingeniero de la universidad a explicarlo: la piedra se encoge con el frío y se estira con el calor, y eso está medido y estudiado. A los niños les gustó menos la explicación que la idea de que su hoja, la de este año, sirviera para un estudio de verdad.In my village's school there is a custom that began twenty years ago: eleven-year-old pupils measure the old bridge. Each class writes down the length, the width and the height above the water and puts the sheet in a folder in the library. In the first years they did it with a rope and a carpenter's measuring tape, and the figures never quite matched. Now they use a device that measures with light, but the teacher makes them check it by hand, with the same rope. Last year they discovered that the bridge is two centimeters shorter than at the first measurement, and there was an uproar in the classroom. An engineer from the university came and explained: stone contracts with cold and stretches with heat, and this has been measured and studied. The children liked the explanation less than the thought that their sheet, this year's, would serve a real study.
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 do the eleven-year-old pupils do?
- Where are the sheets with the figures kept?
- What did they discover last year?
- How did the engineer explain the difference?
Frequently asked
What level do you need to read this text in Spanish?
A2. 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.