Nan in Mass Posted June 10, 2013 Share Posted June 10, 2013 I have had one year of college Spanish. I am losing it fast and want to keep it by doing some summer reading. Can anyone recommend something I would enjoy? It needs to be fairly simple because my vocabulary is pretty limited. I'm willing to look up lots of words in the dictionary, though. It needs to be something light because it was a tough winter and I don't want to read anything that isn't light and fun. I have absolutely no idea what is out there for Spanish. Nan Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
4KookieKids Posted June 11, 2013 Share Posted June 11, 2013 A trick that I often use (for whatever level I'm looking at!) is to pick a book that I know inside out and upside down (in English), and then read that in a different language. If you know the general structure of the language and some basic vocabulary, and you know what the English sentence should say anyway, it's pretty easy to deduce the parts of the foreign-language sentence you don't know. Are there any children's books that you've read a million times and could recite in your sleep, but still get some sort of pleasure from? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bakpak Posted June 12, 2013 Share Posted June 12, 2013 I loved this one from the library recently: http://www.amazon.co...cuentos abuelos Short stories (fairy tales) that are interesting and different than others I've read. I've had a LOT of success with children's books as well. On the fly translating to my daughter as I read to her has helped a ton. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nan in Mass Posted June 13, 2013 Author Share Posted June 13, 2013 Both good suggestions. I know just the thing for a read-a-million-times book and I forgot about fairy tales. I did those for awhile in French and they worked really well because they are more or less adult subject matter in a very condensed form. Thanks! Nan Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bibiche Posted June 15, 2013 Share Posted June 15, 2013 I taught my self Spanish one summer by watching telenovelas with subtitles (in Spanish) and reading Harry Potter. For the HP, I tried not to use a dictionary but to just keep reading until I figured it out. My vocabulary was perhaps not the most practical, but I got comfortable with the language very quickly. :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Miss Tick Posted June 16, 2013 Share Posted June 16, 2013 I'm a little embarrassed to say that my reading level makes Frog and Toad (Sapo Y Sepo) very enjoyable. :laugh: My kids have been slowly working through them, too, which was my justification for buying them. I have some random short story books I've picked up for myself, the first two are written for grammar study, so after each short story there are vocabulary and comprehension questions (in Spanish). I just picked up Mas Cuentos yesterday at a library sale and I have a copy of Cuentos y Risas (free at that link it looks like) which has more study sections after each story. I also recently found this parallel text book which has Spanish stories on the left hand pages (I think originally written in Spanish?) and english translations on the right hand pages. You also might enjoy News in Slow Spanish. The podcasts are lengthy (and all in Spanish), they have three or four stories from the (current) news, then a grammar dialogue (where the discussion uses the grammar focus of the week), discussion of an idiom, and then sort of a travelogue of a place or a discussion of a legend or something similar for cultural exposure. There are more resources on their website but I have never used them. There is a subscription cost, but there is also a demo episode available. I never took a college-level foreign language, so I hope these are in line with what you are looking for. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest lilmyrikal Posted July 8, 2013 Share Posted July 8, 2013 Well I have two books that my grandfather illustrated in the 1960s and they are very basic spanish. I think they'd be very helpful in learning sentence structure in spanish. I've scanned and saved them in pdf format, i could send you a copy or just give you the names and maybe you can look them up through your library on interlibrary loan which is what i did. One is titled : Un animalito peligroso. ?Donde esta?, the other is titled Mario y Lilia. you can also try this link which is a first grade level spanish book I think you would find helpful: http://www.scribd.com/doc/15453367/Evita-Libro-de-Lectura-Para-Primer-Grado Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cathmom Posted July 9, 2013 Share Posted July 9, 2013 Stories from Spain/ Stories from Mexico bilingual books. Just cover the English. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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