II. El joven del rayo de sol
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Hawthorne’s Greek myth retold for A1
King Midas El rey Midas
Nathaniel Hawthorne
This is a retelling of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “The Golden Touch” in simple Spanish, not the original text: a MovaReader adaptation for readers who are just starting to read in Spanish. In the catalog it is A1: about 4,100 words told in the present tense, with sentences of 6 words on average. 8 short chapters about a king who loves gold more than anything, his little daughter Marygold, and a smiling stranger who offers to grant him one wish.
- A1
- 4 081 words
- 1 hour
Will this text hold?
A1
This text
You can manage it at A1: sentences are short, the story stays in the present tense, and words like hoyuelo or cafetera translate with a tap.
Check this passageA2
With room to spare
At A2 the myth reads almost without translation: good for building speed before longer texts in Spanish.
Start readingThe average sentence has 6 words: the story moves in short present-tense statements, with plenty of dialogue between Midas, his daughter and the stranger. A word of 9 letters or more comes up about once in 340 words: there are only 12 in the whole text, such as cristales or vergüenza. The difficulty is even: each of the 8 chapters has 5-7 words per sentence. That matches the other Spanish A1 adaptations in the catalog, which have 6-7. Full texts in Spanish start at B2: Unamuno’s Mist has 13 words per sentence and one long word in fourteen. Hence A1. This is the catalog’s assessment, not a certificate.
- 4 081
- words
- 6
- words in an average sentence
- 1
- hour of reading
MovaReader. Project Gutenberg
What it is about, without the ending
King Midas is very rich, yet he loves gold more than anything except his little daughter Marygold, and he spends hours counting coins in a dark room under his palace. One day a young stranger with a golden smile appears in that locked room and asks what would make the king truly happy. Midas wishes that everything he touches would turn to gold, and at sunrise the wish comes true: the sheets, his book, the roses in his garden. Then he sits down to breakfast. What the golden touch will cost him is not revealed here.
Compare two places
El rey Midas
V. Un desayuno de oro
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«¡!», .
«¿ , ?», . .
«, , », . « , ».
. . ¡ ! . . . . . .
Choose an underlined word.
Where Midas keeps his gold
Allí guarda Midas su tesoro: after allí Spanish often puts the verb before the subject, “there Midas keeps his treasure”. Tan grande como un cubo: tan, an adjective and como compare two things as equal, “as big as a bucket”. Lo pone todo: “he puts it all”, where lo stands for everything he has taken out and todo follows the verb.
Eat up, it’s getting cold
Come tu leche, que se enfría: here que means “because”, a very common way to add a quick reason in speech. Se enfría comes from enfriarse, “to get cold”, built on frío. Toca una con el dedo: una stands for una trucha, so the noun is not repeated. Una trucha de verdad: de verdad after a noun means “real”.
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 the whole sentence where simple words add up to an unfamiliar phrase, as in No sé qué va a ser de tu pobre padre, “I don’t know what will become of your poor father”.
ReaderIf this book is not the one
Before you read
Is this the original or a learner adaptation?
An adaptation, not the original text. It is MovaReader’s own retelling in simple Spanish of “The Golden Touch”, the tale Nathaniel Hawthorne published in A Wonder-Book for Girls and Boys in 1852, which itself retells the Greek myth of Midas as Ovid tells it. The language has changed: the present tense, 6 words per sentence on average, and Hawthorne’s frame story about a student telling myths to children is left out. The episodes of the source remain: the treasure room under the palace, the stranger’s visit and the wish, the golden touch at sunrise, the golden roses, the breakfast that cannot be eaten and the stranger’s questions about water and bread. The full text of the tale is not in the catalog.
Is there an audiobook?
No, there is no audio version of this tale on MovaReader; the text is read on screen. Tap an unfamiliar word and its translation appears: here that will mostly be words such as hoyuelo (dimple) or jarro (jug).
Can I translate a whole sentence?
Yes: whole-sentence translation comes with the Reader plan. But sentences in this tale average 6 words, so you will rarely need a whole one translated: mostly lines like Come tu leche, que se enfría or Todo lo que toco, ¡que sea de oro!, where the words are simple but the pattern is not. Without the plan you can translate single words until the daily limit runs out.
How many hours does it take?
About an hour for the whole tale: the pace of someone who still translates new words, not a native speaker’s. There are 8 chapters of roughly 350 to 750 words each, so a chapter is easy to read in one sitting.
Where does the text get easier?
The difficulty is even from start to finish: each of the 8 chapters averages 5-7 words per sentence. Chapter III, where Midas tests his new gift at dawn, has the shortest sentences, about 5 words; chapter I, which introduces the king and his love of gold, and chapter VII run to about 7.
Will my place in the book be saved?
Yes. After you sign in, the reader remembers where you stopped and which words you opened. The contents on this page also open any of the 8 chapters directly, for example chapter IV, “Las rosas de oro”.