Tenemos que explorar este lugar. Mañana al amanecer empezaremos.
Short Stories in Spanish, Volume One
by Olly Richards
Genre: Detective Fiction
About: A collection of short stories in Spanish, described as being for high-beginners/low-intermediate language learners. In these stories, you'll see a woman turn invisible, journey with Vikings to explore new lands, run from a beast in the woods and be a knight on a quest for the king, as well as many more.
The Good
I loved how many different genres we're given in this collection, it made it really fun to read so many different types of adventures. I also felt like each new story really did increase in level so the achievement of completing a story never got old and there was a real sense of reward to continuing. And the stories themselves were genuinely enjoyable. There was always an element of mystery and this kept me turning the pages.
I also think that giving a paragraph summary at the end of each chapter, a new vocab list and a round of questions to answer helped to cement that feeling of comprehension. I might not have known every word or every sentence, but going through this summary section did increase my confidence that I'd understood enough.
My order of preference:
El cofre (Family drama)
La criatura (Mystery)
El reloj (Sci-Fi)
La capsula (Sci-Fi)
El caballero (Fantasy)
La Paella Loca (Contemporary)
Laura, ia mujer invisible (Sci-Fi)
Tierras desconocidas (Historical Fiction)
The Bad
Everything is very simplified so the stories rely a lot on stereotypes of personalities (this is especially true of El caballero, La capsula and Tierras desconocidas). So a lot of the characters don't have very interesting personalities and the motivations are quite cliché for some things. But that's to be expected and necessary when the language itself has to be simplified.
The Somewhat Iffy
The La criatura story made me laugh but I did think her family were mean to have pulled that kind of prank on her! And La Paella Loca definitely relied on a few heavy coincidences.
Overall
Such a cool book for beginners in a new language to get their hands on! I loved the sense of progression and it certainly feels more rewarding than going through textbooks.
Comments