I. Por la madriguera del Conejo
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Carroll’s classic as an A2 adaptation
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland Alicia en el país de las maravillas
Lewis Carroll
This is not Lewis Carroll’s original text but a retelling of it in simple Spanish: MovaReader wrote this adaptation for readers who can already read in the past tenses and want to follow Alice all the way, from the rabbit hole to the royal court. The catalog places it at A2, with about 9,000 words and an average of 9 words per sentence. All 12 chapters match the chapters of the 1865 book, and the characters are the same: the White Rabbit, the Caterpillar, the Cheshire Cat, the Hatter and the Queen of Hearts.
- A2
- 9 026 words
- 2-3 hours
Will this text hold?
A1
Earlier
At A1 the text is still a stretch: sentences average 9 words rather than the 6-7 of the A1 adaptations, and the whole narration runs in the pretérito indefinido and imperfecto: cayó, miró, estaba, tenía.
A1A2
This text
At A2 it reads smoothly: sentences are short, dialogue is plentiful, and long words are rare, about one in 32.
Check this passageB1
With room to spare
For B1 it is light reading of 2-3 hours with few unknown words; full Spanish texts in the catalog start at B2, and this tale makes a warm-up for them.
Start readingThe average sentence has 9 words, and more than a third of the text is the characters’ lines and thoughts in quotation marks: short questions, exclamations and orders. The story is told in the past, events in the pretérito indefinido and background in the imperfecto, so you will need both tenses. Words of 9 letters or more are few, about one in 32, and almost one in ten of them is Sombrerero. The level does not jump anywhere: each chapter averages 8 to 10 words per sentence. The catalog’s A1 Spanish adaptations have 6-7 words per sentence, and the A2 adaptation of Don Quixote has 10, with a long word about once in 36. Unamuno’s Mist, the full Spanish text with the shortest sentences in the catalog, is already B2: 13 words per sentence and one long word in 14. So this retelling sits at A2. This is the catalog’s assessment, not a certificate.
- 9 026
- words
- 9
- words in an average sentence
- 2-3
- hours of reading
MovaReader. Project Gutenberg
What it is about, without the ending
On a hot summer afternoon Alice is growing bored on a riverbank when a White Rabbit with a pocket watch runs past, and she follows him into a hole. After a long, slow fall she lands in a hall with a tiny door to a garden: a bottle marked BÉBEME shrinks her, and a cake marked CÓMEME turns her into a giant. Then come a pool of her own tears, a race in a circle to get dry, a Caterpillar with a long pipe on a mushroom, the Duchess’s kitchen full of pepper, a Cheshire Cat that vanishes and leaves its grin behind, and a tea party with the Hatter and the March Hare, where it is always six o’clock. In the Queen of Hearts’ garden croquet is played with live flamingos, and the Queen calls for someone’s head about once a minute. At last the Knave of Hearts goes on trial for the stolen tarts. What the verdict is and how the adventure ends is left for you to read.
Compare two places
Alicia en el país de las maravillas
VII. Una merienda de locos
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Choose an underlined word.
The fall and what happens in it
While Alice drifts down, the narration keeps to the imperfecto: bajaba, caía, tenía and estaban describe what went on the whole time. Single actions that start and finish are in the pretérito indefinido: empezó, tomó, dejó. Siguió cayendo: seguir with a gerund means “went on falling”. Me va a echar de menos: echar de menos is “to miss someone”. Daba igual: “it made no difference”.
A riddle at the tea table
Al ver a Alicia: al with an infinitive means “as soon as they saw Alice”. De sobra: “more than enough”, which is Alice’s answer to the cry that there is no room. ¿En qué se parece un cuervo a un escritorio?: parecerse a means “to be like”, so the Hatter asks how a raven is like a writing desk. Lo puedo adivinar: the pronoun comes before poder, but puedo adivinarlo is just as correct and means the same.
Chapters
- IPor la madriguera del Conejo
- IIEl charco de lágrimas
- IIIUna carrera loca y una historia larga
- IVEl Conejo envía al pequeño Bill
- VLos consejos de la Oruga
- VICerdo y pimienta
- VIIUna merienda de locos
- VIIIEl campo de cróquet de la Reina
- IXLa historia de la Falsa Tortuga
- XEl baile de la langosta
- XI¿Quién robó las tartas?
- XIILa declaración de Alicia
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 where the joke is hidden in the words themselves, as in the Mock Turtle’s school subjects: Histeria antigua y moderna, Marografía.
ReaderIf this book is not the one
All books at this levelBefore you read
Is this the original or a learner adaptation?
This is a MovaReader adaptation, not Carroll’s own text: Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, which Lewis Carroll published in English in 1865, is retold here in simple modern Spanish. The language and length have changed: past tenses, 9 words per sentence on average and about 9,000 words, while the complete English original in the catalog runs to about 26,400. All 12 chapters remain with their main scenes, from the Rabbit’s hole to the Knave’s trial. Carroll’s poems and parodies are either retold in a few words or cut down to two or three lines, and English puns are swapped for Spanish ones: the Cat, for example, asks whether Alice said cerdo or cerco. Carroll’s complete original, in English, is in the catalog too.
Is there an audiobook?
This adaptation exists only as text to read; there is no recording of it. Tap an unfamiliar word and its translation shows up at once; in this tale you will mostly need words about growing and size: crecer, encoger, centímetros.
Can I translate a whole sentence?
The Reader plan is the one that translates whole sentences. Sentences here are short, 9 words on average, so you will not need it often, mainly for the logic jokes, like the Hatter’s ¡Entonces “veo lo que como” es lo mismo que “como lo que veo”! Single words can be translated on the free plan as well, within a daily limit.
How many hours does it take?
The whole adaptation takes 2-3 hours if you read with translation of new words. Chapters vary in length, from about 400 words in X to almost 1,000 in XII, so one chapter takes 4 to 16 minutes.
Where does the text get easier?
There is no easier stretch here: the average sentence stays between 8 and 10 words in every chapter. Only long words vary noticeably. In chapter IX, the Mock Turtle’s story, a word of 9 letters or more comes once in 75 words, while in VII and XI, where the Hatter does much of the talking, it comes once in 22, and a third of those are Sombrerero.
Will my place in the book be saved?
Yes: once you sign in, the reader remembers where you stopped and the words you opened, so you pick up from the same spot. The chapter list on this page also jumps straight to any chapter, for example VII, “Una merienda de locos”, where Alice joins the tea party.