I. El leñador y los cuarenta ladrones
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A tale of a treasure cave, adapted for A2
Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves Alí Babá y los cuarenta ladrones
Antoine Galland
This is a retelling in simple Spanish, not the original text: MovaReader wrote its own adaptation of the tale that appeared in 1717 in volume 11 of Antoine Galland’s French Thousand and One Nights. It is meant for readers who already know the past tenses and want the whole story rather than an extract. At about 4,400 words in 9 chapters and 10 words per sentence on average, it is rated A2 in the catalog. It runs from a woodcutter spying on forty thieves from a tree to the night when everything depends on the quick-witted slave girl Morgiana.
- A2
- 4 446 words
- 1 hour
Will this text hold?
A1
Earlier
At A1 it will be slow going: sentences average 10 words, and nearly the whole story runs in the pretérito indefinido and imperfecto (vivía, se casó, pensó), which A1 courses usually have not reached yet.
A1A2
This text
At A2 it reads smoothly: short sentences, past tenses you know, and unusual words like odre or sebo are explained by the text in a single sentence.
Check this passageB1
With room to spare
At B1 an hour is enough and you will hardly need translation: a good warm-up before the full Spanish texts, the easiest of which are B2 in the catalog.
Start readingThe average sentence has 10 words, 3-4 more than in the catalog’s A1 adaptations, which have 6-7. The story is told in the past: the pretérito indefinido for events (subió, contó, se abrió) and the imperfecto for background (vivían, tenía, llevaban), while the dialogue adds polite commands and the pretérito perfecto (Venga conmigo, ¿has robado este dinero?). Long words of 9 letters or more are rare here: about one in 75, fewer than in the A1 adaptation of Little Red Riding Hood, and most are familiar verbs such as volvieron or reconoció. Rare words are explained by the text itself: El sebo es una grasa que se pega a todo. Chapter by chapter the average sentence moves only between 9 and 11 words, so the difficulty is even. Among the full Spanish texts, Unamuno’s Mist has the shortest sentences, at 13 words, and it sits at B2 with long words five times as frequent. So sentence length and the past tenses set the level: A2. This is the catalog’s assessment, not a certificate.
- 4 446
- words
- 10
- words in an average sentence
- 1
- hour of reading
MovaReader. Project Gutenberg
What it is about, without the ending
Two brothers live in a city in Persia. Cassim has married a rich woman and become a merchant, while Ali Baba cuts wood in the forest and sells it in town. One day he hides in a tree from a band of riders, sees forty thieves and hears the words that open a door in the rock. Ali Baba takes some of the gold, but Cassim’s wife finds out about the treasure by a trick, and the envious brother sets off for the cave alone. The thieves realize that someone else knows their secret and search the city for his house. Standing in their way is Morgiana, a slave girl who notices what others miss. Who outwits whom is left for you to read.
Compare two places
Alí Babá y los cuarenta ladrones
VI. El mercader de aceite
. , , : «¿ ?».
¡ ! , , . , . , : « , ». , . . , .
Choose an underlined word.
The words that open the rock
¡Ábrete, sésamo! means “Open, sesame!”: ábrete is the command of abrirse with te attached at the end, which is why it gains a written accent on the first syllable. ¡Ciérrate! from cerrarse follows the same pattern. Sésamo is an ordinary grain here, sesame, and that will matter in chapter III. The thieves’ actions come as a chain in the pretérito indefinido: llegaron, bajaron, ató, tomó, se acercó. The background is in the imperfecto: eran cuarenta, llevaban armas. Tan alta que nadie podía subir: “so high that nobody could climb it”.
Morgiana answers for the captain
¿Ya es hora? means “Is it time yet?”: the man in the leather jar thinks the captain has come. Todavía no, pero pronto: “Not yet, but soon”. De odre en odre: “from jar to jar”; the text explained the word odre at the start of the chapter: Un odre es una bolsa de cuero para llevar vino o aceite. Supo, the pretérito indefinido of saber, means “found out” rather than “knew”: Así supo que en la casa había treinta y ocho ladrones, “that is how she found out there were thirty-eight thieves in the house”.
Chapters
Translation while you read
The book stays free on every plan. Reader, €1 a month, removes the daily limit on words and sentences.
Reader
€1 a month
Reader translates whole sentences, which helps where the grammar gets denser, as in the captain’s threat: Lo que no pude hacer con tantos hombres, lo haré yo solo.
ReaderIf this book is not the one
Spanish books A1 Earlier Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp Aladino y la lámpara maravillosa Another book by the same author A2
All books at this level
Before you read
Is this the original or a learner adaptation?
The text in the reader was written by MovaReader: it is a retelling, not Galland’s own words. The source is Histoire d’Ali Baba et de quarante voleurs exterminés par une esclave, which appeared in French in 1717, after Antoine Galland’s death, in volume 11 of his Thousand and One Nights. No Arabic manuscript of the tale is known: Galland wrote it down from the oral telling of Hanna Diyab, a storyteller from Aleppo. MovaReader retold it in modern Spanish in the past tenses: 10 words per sentence on average, 9 chapters and about 4,400 words, roughly a third of the French text. All the main episodes remain: the cave and its magic word, the measure with tallow at the bottom, the cobbler Baba Mustafa, the chalk marks on the doors, the oil merchant and the guest who eats no salt. Scheherazade’s frame, the long speeches and some of the detail are left out. Galland’s French text is not in the catalog, which only holds texts in English, Spanish and Ukrainian.
Is there an audiobook?
No, this tale is for reading only: there is no narrated version. Tap any unfamiliar word to see its translation; here that will often be everyday things from the house and the market, such as odre, jarra, aceite or aguja.
Can I translate a whole sentence?
Yes, the Reader plan translates any sentence of this tale in full. Sentences here are short, 10 words on average, so you will rarely need it: mostly where the pluperfect appears, as in Pero no vio que una moneda de oro se había quedado pegada al fondo. Single words stay free to translate, with a cap on how many per day.
How many hours does it take?
The whole tale takes about an hour if you stop for new words and read with translation. Each of the 9 chapters, about 490 words on average, needs 5-8 minutes, so the story fits easily into a single evening.
Where does the text get easier?
There is no easier or harder stretch: each of the 9 chapters has 9-11 words per sentence. Only the number of long words varies: chapter IV has the most (pastillas, carpintero, costumbre), while chapter VIII has just one.
Will my place in the book be saved?
Yes, for signed-in readers: the reader remembers where you stopped and which words you opened, so next time you start from the same place. The contents on this page also jump straight to any chapter, for example VI, “El mercader de aceite”, where an oil merchant comes to Ali Baba’s door.