I. Tres gotas de sangre
, . . , . . .
, .
«¡!», .
. . .
. . . . :
« . , ».
The Grimms’ magic mirror tale, adapted for A1
Snow White Blancanieves
Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm
This is not the original text but a retelling in simple Spanish: MovaReader adapted the Brothers Grimm tale of Snow White, first published in 1812, for level A1. Its 9 short chapters hold about 3,600 words, with sentences of 6 words on average and the narration in the present tense. It is the story of a girl as white as snow whom her jealous stepmother, the queen, sends into the forest, and who finds shelter in the cottage of seven dwarfs.
- A1
- 3 604 words
- 1 hour
Will this text hold?
A1
This text
You can read this tale at A1 already: the sentences are short, the plot is familiar, and new words like aguja or migas translate with a tap.
Check this passageA2
With room to spare
At A2 it is easy reading for building pace: nearly every word is familiar, and only a few, like mejillas or cordones, may make you stop.
Start readingThe average sentence has 6 words, as in The Three Little Pigs and Little Red Riding Hood at A1, while the A2 adaptation of Don Quixote has 10. A word of 9 letters or more turns up about once in 58 words, but 58 of those 62 are the name Blancanieves itself, and the other four are demasiado (twice), enseguida and entiendes. The story is told in the present tense, more than a quarter of the words are lines in quotation marks, and the question to the mirror comes back seven times in the same words. No chapter is harder than the rest: each of the 9 averages 6-7 words per sentence. Complete Spanish texts in the catalog begin at B2, and the shortest sentences among them are in Unamuno’s Mist, 13 words. So the level is A1. This is the catalog’s assessment, not a certificate.
- 3 604
- words
- 6
- words in an average sentence
- 1
- hour of reading
MovaReader. Project Gutenberg
What it is about, without the ending
One winter a queen sewing at a window of black ebony pricks her finger and wishes for a daughter as white as snow, as red as blood and as black as ebony. So Snow White is born, but her mother soon dies, and the king’s new wife asks a magic mirror every morning who is the fairest in the land. When the mirror names Snow White, the queen orders a servant to take the girl into the forest. The servant lets her go, and she finds a little house among the hills where seven dwarfs live who dig for gold in the mountains. The mirror never lies, so the queen learns that Snow White is alive and sets off for the cottage in disguise. Every morning the dwarfs ask the girl not to open the door to anyone.
Compare two places
Blancanieves
III. La casita de las colinas
. . .
« », .
« », .
«¡ !», .
«¡ !», .
« », .
«¡ !», .
«¡ !», .
Choose an underlined word.
A word the text explains itself
The text explains ébano at once: una madera muy negra, “a very black wood”. In se pincha un dedo the pronoun se shows that the queen pricks her own finger. Está sentada describes a state, “is sitting”, not the movement “sits down”. And como in the queen’s wish means “as”: blanca como la nieve, “as white as snow”.
Seven complaints, one pattern
Every line is built the same way: mi (“my”) and a thing, then what is wrong with it, and at the end dice with an ordinal from el primero to el séptimo, a handy way to learn ordinals. A mi pan le falta un trozo is literally “to my bread a piece is missing”: the verb faltar agrees with what is missing. Tampoco means “not ... either”: the fork is not in its place either.
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
At A1 Reader helps twice: it lifts the daily limit on word translations and translates a whole sentence such as No te voy a hacer daño, “I will not hurt you”.
ReaderIf this book is not the one
All books at this level
Before you read
Is this the original or a learner adaptation?
This is an adaptation: MovaReader’s own retelling, not the Grimms’ text. The source is the Brothers Grimm tale Sneewittchen (Snow White), first published in 1812 in the first volume of Kinder- und Hausmärchen. The retelling follows the English text of the tale in Grimms’ Fairy Tales on Project Gutenberg, compiled from the translations of Edgar Taylor and Marian Edwardes, where the tale is called Snowdrop. The language has changed: Spanish in the present tense, short sentences and the most common words, and the rhymes spoken to the mirror are retold in prose. The text is about one and a half times as long as the English one, which runs to about 2,400 words: conversations were added, such as the servant’s walk with Snow White to the forest and her story told to the dwarfs. The episodes of the source keep their order: three drops of blood by the ebony window, the mirror that never lies, the cottage with seven little beds and the three visits of the disguised queen. Neither the German original nor a full translation of the tale is in the catalog.
Is there an audiobook?
No, Snow White has no audio version on MovaReader; the tale is read on screen. Tap a new word to see its translation: here that will mostly be things in the dwarfs’ cottage, such as migas, tenedor or sábana.
Can I translate a whole sentence?
Whole-sentence translation is part of the Reader plan, and here you will need it only now and then. The sentences are short, so the times to use it are turns like Todo le da miedo or No le importa, where every word is familiar but together they mean more than word for word. Without the plan, single words still translate, within a daily limit.
How many hours does it take?
Roughly one hour: that is how long about 3,600 words take when you stop to translate each unfamiliar word. The shortest chapter, VIII, has about 240 words and the longest, III, about 530, so any chapter fits into a short break.
Where does the text get easier?
There is no hard stretch to get through: the difficulty is level, and every one of the 9 chapters averages 6-7 words per sentence. Chapter I, with the winter and the queen at her window, has the longest sentences at about 7 words; chapter V, about the laces, has the shortest at about 6.
Will my place in the book be saved?
Yes, if you are signed in: the reader keeps the spot where you closed the tale, along with the words you looked up. Any of the 9 chapters also opens from the contents on this page, for example VI, “El peine”.