Spanish A1: Ana likes reading at the Vasconcelos Library
Easy Spanish A1 reading: Ana visits the Biblioteca Vasconcelos in Mexico City, where the bookshelves hang in the air. Practises le gusta and le gustan.
A Ana le gusta leer en la Biblioteca Vasconcelos
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Ana and her grandmother go to the Biblioteca Vasconcelos in Mexico City on Saturdays: hanging shelves, the skeleton of a whale drawn on by Gabriel Orozco in the middle of the building, and a large garden of Mexican plants around it. Almost every paragraph carries le gusta or le gustan, and the text closes with questions for the reader.
El nombre oficial viene de José Vasconcelos, un filósofo y educador mexicano. La biblioteca no es antigua: es del año 2006. A Ana le gusta ese nombre largo, pero le gusta más el edificio.
Dentro hay una sala muy larga y el techo es muy alto. Las estanterías no están en el suelo: están en el aire. Son estanterías colgantes. A Ana le gustan esas estanterías con miles de libros. Le gusta mirar hacia arriba.
En el centro del edificio hay una ballena. Es el esqueleto de una ballena de verdad. El artista mexicano Gabriel Orozco dibujó círculos en los huesos. A Ana le gusta mucho esa ballena. A muchos visitantes les gusta también.
Hay un jardín muy grande alrededor del edificio, con plantas de México. Cuando hace sol, a Ana le gusta leer fuera, en un banco del jardín. Le gustan los árboles y el aire fresco.
La biblioteca está muy cerca de la estación de Buenavista. A la abuela de Ana le gusta el viaje en tren. A las dos les gusta llegar temprano, porque por la mañana hay lugar en las mesas grandes.
A Ana le gustan los libros de animales. Hoy busca un libro sobre ballenas de verdad. Después mira otra vez la ballena del centro. A Ana le gusta ese momento.
¿Y a ti? ¿Te gusta leer los sábados? ¿Te gustan las bibliotecas grandes o las bibliotecas pequeñas? ¿Qué libros te gustan más?
About this article
What you'll learn
Third person gustar: a Ana le gusta and le gustan, les gusta for several people, te gusta in questions; library vocabulary.
Ana and her grandmother go to the Biblioteca Vasconcelos in Mexico City on Saturdays: hanging shelves, the skeleton of a whale drawn on by Gabriel Orozco in the middle of the building, and a large garden of Mexican plants around it. Almost every paragraph carries le gusta or le gustan, and the text closes with questions for the reader.
After reading
Article learning block
Phrases, words, grammar, and quick practice from this text.
Phrases for training
Add useful phrases to SRS or mark them as already known.
hace sol
newwhen it is sunny
Spanish talks about the weather with hacer (to make, to do), never with ser or estar: hace sol, hace frío, hace calor, hace viento. Word for word it says "it makes sun".
Every weather sentence uses this pattern, so a word for word translation from English never works.
hay lugar
newthere is room, there are free seats
hay means both "there is" and "there are" and never changes its form. Here lugar means free space or a free seat, not only "place". In Mexico people say hay lugar where Spain says hay sitio.
hay is the one form you need to say what exists, and this is how you ask whether a seat is free.
otra vez
newagain, one more time
Literally "another time". vez means an occasion or a turn, and it builds a whole family of phrases: una vez (once), dos veces (twice), a veces (sometimes), otra vez (again).
Spanish has no single short word for "again", so this is the phrase you need.
Key words
Vocabulary that carries the school-day topic.
estanterías colgantes - hanging shelves
estanterías colgantes
hanging bookshelves
una estantería is a bookcase or a set of shelves, from estante, one single shelf. colgante means hanging, from the verb colgar (to hang).
estantería is the everyday word for the furniture that holds books, at home as well as in a library.
el techo - the ceiling
el techo
the ceiling (and often the roof)
techo is the surface above you seen from inside a room, and often the roof as well. The tiled roof seen from outside is el tejado.
A basic word for describing any room, and it looks nothing like the English word.
el suelo - the floor, the ground
el suelo
the floor, the ground
suelo is the surface you stand on, indoors or outdoors. For a storey of a building Spanish uses piso or planta, not suelo.
It pairs with techo: techo above you, suelo under your feet.
la ballena - the whale
la ballena
the whale
ballena is a feminine noun: la ballena, las ballenas. Note the double ll, which sounds like the y of "yes" in most of the Spanish speaking world.
A common animal word and a clean example of how ll is pronounced.
un banco - a bench (and a bank)
un banco
a bench in the garden
banco means both a long seat to sit on and a bank that keeps money. Only the context decides: en un banco del jardín is a bench.
A word that looks easy and is not: the wrong meaning turns a garden into a bank.
alrededor de - around
alrededor del edificio
around the building
alrededor always takes de before a noun: alrededor de la casa, alrededor del edificio. Remember that de + el contracts to del.
A very common position word, and the de after it is obligatory.
temprano - early
temprano
early
temprano = early, tarde = late. Careful: tarde is also a part of the day, so por la tarde means "in the afternoon" while llegar tarde means "to arrive late".
The pair temprano and tarde covers most sentences about being on time.
Grammar in context
Patterns from the text worth noticing after reading.
Who likes what: a Ana le gusta leer
A Ana le gusta leer
Ana likes reading
Spanish turns the English sentence around. leer is the subject, the thing that pleases, and Ana is the indirect object marked by a. Word for word it says "reading is pleasing to Ana". With an infinitive such as leer, mirar or llegar the verb is always the singular gusta.
Both parts are needed: the a before the person and the pronoun le. On its own, Ana gusta would mean that other people find Ana attractive.
gusta or gustan: the thing decides
A Ana le gustan esas estanterías
Ana likes those shelves
estanterías is plural, so the verb is gustan. The person does not change it: le gusta el libro but le gustan los libros. Only the thing that pleases chooses between gusta and gustan.
This is the most frequent mistake with gustar, and it comes up in every single sentence.
le or les: how many people
A muchos visitantes les gusta
Many visitors like it too
One person takes le, several people take les: a Ana le gusta, a muchos visitantes les gusta. The verb here stays gusta because the thing they like, esa ballena, is still singular.
Two different agreements sit in one short sentence: les counts the people, gusta counts the thing.
Asking someone: te gusta, te gustan
¿Te gustan las bibliotecas grandes
Do you like big libraries?
te is the pronoun for tú, the person you are talking to. The choice between gusta and gustan still depends on the thing: bibliotecas is plural, so gustan. Every Spanish question also opens with an upside down question mark.
This is the question you will really be asked, and the answer begins with a mí me gusta.
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