I. Nochebuena en la oficina
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An A2 adaptation of Dickens’s ghost story
A Christmas Carol Cuento de Navidad
Charles Dickens
This is a retelling of Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol in simple Spanish, not the original text: a MovaReader adaptation for readers who already know the past tenses and want the whole ghost story. In the catalog it is A2: about 5,200 words, 9 words per sentence on average. Nine chapters follow the five staves of the 1843 novella in order, from Scrooge’s counting house on Christmas Eve to Christmas morning.
- A2
- 5 204 words
- 1 hour
Will this text hold?
A1
Earlier
At A1 the past tenses will stop you: the narration runs in the pretérito indefinido and imperfecto (dijo, llegó, había, hacía), at 9 words per sentence on average, against 5-7 in A1 books.
A1A2
This text
You can manage it at A2: sentences are short, the story stays in the past tenses you know, and the words that come back all the time (espíritu, cadena, Navidad) are learned quickly.
Check this passageB1
With room to spare
At B1 you can move on to the longer retellings, such as The Three Musketeers, with 11 words per sentence and about 13,500 words, where sentences carry more clauses.
Start readingThe average sentence has 9 words, like the catalog’s other A2 books in Spanish, which run at 9-10 words, against 5-7 in A1 books and 11-12 in B1 books. The story is told in the past, with events in the pretérito indefinido and background in the imperfecto, and a large part of the text is the characters’ lines in quotation marks. A word of 9 letters or more comes up about once in 38 words (2.6%), inside the 1.1-3.6% range of the A2 books, and the names that keep coming back, Scrooge, Marley and Cratchit, are short. The difficulty is even: each of the 9 chapters has 9-10 words per sentence. The B1 retellings are longer and denser: The Three Musketeers has 11 words per sentence and about 13,500 words. Hence A2. This is the catalog’s assessment, not a certificate.
- 5 204
- words
- 9
- words in an average sentence
- 1
- hour of reading
MovaReader. Project Gutenberg
What it is about, without the ending
On Christmas Eve the old miser Ebenezer Scrooge turns away his cheerful nephew Fred, sends off two gentlemen who are collecting for the poor and grudgingly lets his clerk Bob Cratchit go home. At night the ghost of his dead partner Jacob Marley comes dragging a heavy chain and warns him that three spirits will visit him. The first shows him his lonely school days, Fezziwig’s ball and Bella, the girl he lost. The second takes him to the Cratchits’ small Christmas dinner and to Fred’s party, and shows him the frail Tiny Tim. The third, silent and dressed in black, leads him to a grave. How the night ends is not revealed here.
Compare two places
Cuento de Navidad
II. El fantasma de Marley
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Choose an underlined word.
A polite command, ser and estar
No se enfade, tío is a negative command with usted, “do not get angry”: Fred stays polite even with his grumpy uncle. Usted es rico and está tan triste both describe Scrooge, with ser for what he is and estar for how he feels now. Contestó Fred, riendo is the pretérito indefinido with a gerund, “answered Fred, laughing”.
Two past tenses in one scene
Se abrió and entró are the pretérito indefinido: one action after another, each one finished. Llevaba una larga cadena and podía ver are the imperfecto, the picture around the action. Tan claro que Scrooge podía ver means “so clear that Scrooge could see”, a pattern with tan... que. A través del traje is “through the suit”.
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, and here that helps with a line like Hasta los perros de los ciegos se alejaban de él cuando lo veían venir, where hasta (“even”) and the two past tenses are easier to read in one piece.
ReaderIf this book is not the one
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Is this the original or a learner adaptation?
A learner adaptation, not the original: MovaReader retold Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol (1843) in simple Spanish, so this Spanish text is MovaReader’s own and not Dickens’s words. The language and length have changed: modern Spanish in the past tenses, 9 words per sentence on average, 9 chapters and about 5,200 words. The retelling keeps Dickens’s five staves in order: Scrooge and Bob Cratchit on Christmas Eve, Fred and the two gentlemen, Marley’s ghost, the three spirits and Christmas morning. Some details are left out, such as a few of the scenes the second spirit shows. The complete novella is not in the catalog, only retellings of it. The source is the Project Gutenberg edition, ebook 46.
Is there an audiobook?
There is no audio version of this adaptation: MovaReader gives you the text, not a recording. Tap an unfamiliar word and its translation appears next to it; here that will mostly be words like cadena, muleta or ganso.
Can I translate a whole sentence?
The Reader plan translates whole sentences. Here they are not long, 9 words on average, so you will seldom need one translated: mostly lines with a turn of phrase, like Si no lo hace en vida, debe hacerlo después de morir, from Marley’s warning. The free plan also translates single words, up to a daily limit.
How many hours does it take?
The whole adaptation takes about 1 hour for most readers, a little more if you translate many words. A chapter averages about 580 words, or 6-10 minutes of reading, so one evening easily covers the whole book.
Where does the text get easier?
The difficulty is even: each of the 9 chapters averages 9-10 words per sentence, so there is no easier stretch. Only long words vary: in chapter VII, about the last spirit, about one word in 48 has 9 letters or more, and in chapter VIII, about the grave, one in 32.
Will my place in the book be saved?
Yes, once you sign in: the reader keeps your last place and the words you opened, so next time you carry on from there. The contents on this page also take you straight to any chapter, say VII, “El último espíritu”, where the silent third spirit appears.