II. La leyenda de Hugo Baskerville
. , , . , , , . . . . , , . , , . . .
A B1 retelling of Conan Doyle’s mystery
The Hound of the Baskervilles El sabueso de los Baskerville
Arthur Conan Doyle
This is a MovaReader retelling of Arthur Conan Doyle’s novel in Spanish, not the original text and not a translation of the full novel: it is written for B1 readers who want a long mystery with all the tenses they are learning. In the catalog it is B1: about 14,500 words, 12 words per sentence on average, in 14 chapters. As in the novel of 1902, Dr Watson tells the story in the first person, from Dr Mortimer’s forgotten walking stick at Baker Street to the night fog over the great mire of Grimpen. Nothing is taken from the films: every scene is in the novel.
- B1
- 14 507 words
- 2-4 hours
Will this text hold?
A2
Earlier
At A2 you will follow the mystery, but the grammar will stop you: the pluperfect, the conditional and the imperfect subjunctive (Si mi amigo no hubiera propuesto venir, yo mismo lo habría buscado), sentences of 12 words instead of the 9-10 of the A2 shelf, and reported speech in Watson’s letters and diary.
A2B1
This text
Right for B1: all the tenses you are learning in sentences of 12 words, everyday vocabulary with a few words of the moor such as páramo and pantano, and 14 chapters of 800 to 1,500 words, each ending on a new question.
Check this passageB2
With room to spare
At B2 the retelling reads quickly, almost without translation, in two or three evenings. After it come the complete texts of the B2 shelf, such as Unamuno’s Mist, with 13 words per sentence and one long word in fourteen.
Start readingThe average sentence has 12 words, close to the complete texts: Unamuno’s Mist, at B2, has 13, while the Spanish A2 adaptations have 9-10, Alice in Wonderland 9 and Don Quixote 10. What keeps this retelling below B2 is vocabulary: a word of 9 letters or more comes up about once in 21 words (4.8%), against once in 14 in Mist (6.9%), and about one in nine of those long words is a name such as Stapleton, Baskerville or Barrymore. What lifts it above A2 is grammar. B1 is the first step of the catalog where a MovaReader retelling uses all the tenses at almost the pace of a complete text: the pluperfect when the story looks back (Había muerto de miedo y de cansancio), the imperfect subjunctive after como si (como si sir Charles hubiera caminado de puntillas), the conditional with si-clauses (Si mi amigo no hubiera propuesto venir, yo mismo lo habría buscado), reported speech in Watson’s letters and connectors such as aunque, sin embargo, mientras and en cuanto. About two fifths of the words are dialogue in «», where Holmes reasons aloud. The difficulty is even: each of the 14 chapters has 11-14 words per sentence. Hence B1. This is the catalog’s assessment, not a certificate.
- 14 507
- words
- 12
- words in an average sentence
- 2-4
- hours of reading
MovaReader. Project Gutenberg
What it is about, without the ending
Dr James Mortimer, a country doctor from Devon, brings Sherlock Holmes an old manuscript about Hugo Baskerville, the cruel squire who, the legend says, was killed on the moor by a black hound from hell. Then he tells him what he kept back at the inquest into the recent death of Sir Charles Baskerville: the old man was found at the end of the yew alley with terror on his face, and a little way off there were the footprints of a gigantic hound. The heir, Sir Henry, arrives from Canada, and in London he receives a warning made of words cut out of a newspaper, loses first a new boot and then an old one, and is followed by a man with a black beard. Holmes stays in London and sends Dr Watson with him to Baskerville Hall. There Watson reports on the butler who signals into the night with a candle, the escaped convict Selden, the naturalist Stapleton and his beautiful sister, who whispers to him to go back to London, and a tall figure standing alone on a tor against the moon. Who that man is and what lies behind the hound is not revealed here.
Compare two places
El sabueso de los Baskerville
IX. La luz en la ventana
. . , , . , , . , , . , . , , .
Choose an underlined word.
A legend in the past tenses
The legend gives each event in the indefinido (bajaron, arrancó, gritaron, huyeron) and what the riders found in the imperfecto (yacía, estaba, había una bestia). Había muerto is the pluperfect: the girl was already dead when they came. Más grande que ningún perro que hubieran visto ojos humanos: after a comparison with ningún the verb goes into the pluperfect subjunctive, “bigger than any dog human eyes had ever seen”. Le arrancó la garganta a Hugo names the victim twice, le and a Hugo, as Spanish usually does. Lo que les heló la sangre: “what froze their blood”.
What had happened and what seemed
Nos habíamos sentado and había huido are pluperfects: they had already sat down, and the convict had already run off another way. Como si mirara is the imperfect subjunctive that always follows como si, “as if he were looking”. Era mucho más bajo means “much shorter”: bajo is about height here, not sound. Enseñárselo is enseñar + se + lo, “to show it to him”: le turns into se before lo, and the written accent keeps the stress on -ñár-.
Chapters
- IEl bastón del doctor Mortimer
- IILa leyenda de Hugo Baskerville
- IIILa muerte de sir Charles
- IVSir Henry Baskerville
- VTres hilos rotos
- VILa mansión en el páramo
- VIILos Stapleton de Merripit
- VIIILos informes del doctor Watson
- IXLa luz en la ventana
- XLa carta de Coombe Tracey
- XIEl hombre del monte
- XIIMuerte en el páramo
- XIIILa trampa
- XIVMirando atrás
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 most where the grammar imagines what did not happen, as in chapter IV: Si mi amigo no hubiera propuesto venir, yo mismo lo habría buscado, señor Holmes.
ReaderIf this book is not the one
Spanish books A2 Earlier Sherlock Holmes: The Speckled Band and Other Cases Sherlock Holmes: La banda de lunares y otros casos Another book by the same author A2
All books at this level
.jpg){kind=link}
Before you read
Is this the original or a learner adaptation?
A learner adaptation, not the original and not a translation of the full novel: MovaReader retold in Spanish Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Hound of the Baskervilles, an English novel serialised in 1901-1902 and first published as a book in 1902. The language and length have changed: modern Spanish with all the tenses, 12 words per sentence on average, 14 chapters and about 14,500 words, while the complete novel of 15 chapters is about four times longer. The main line remains, told by Dr Watson in the first person: the walking stick at Baker Street, the legend of Hugo Baskerville, Sir Charles’s death, Sir Henry in London and the missing boots, Baskerville Hall and the moor, the Barrymores and the convict Selden, the Stapletons, Watson’s reports and diary and the man on the tor. Holmes’s long explanations are shorter, and minor scenes in London are condensed. The complete novel is not in the catalog; there is an English B1 adaptation of the same story.
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 often be the vocabulary of the moor and of the investigation, such as páramo, pantano, huellas or sospechas.
Can I translate a whole sentence?
The Reader plan translates whole sentences. Here they average 12 words, and you will want one translated mostly where Holmes reasons aloud or where the grammar imagines what did not happen, as in Supongo que yo tampoco habría pensado en ellas si no hubiera conocido la leyenda, or in the reported speech of Watson’s letters. The free plan also translates single words, up to a daily limit.
How many hours does it take?
The whole adaptation takes 2-4 hours at the pace of someone who still translates new words. A chapter averages about 1,000 words, or 10-17 minutes of reading, so one evening covers three or four chapters.
Where does the text get easier?
The difficulty is even: each of the 14 chapters averages 11-14 words per sentence, so there is no easier stretch. Only long words vary: one in 29 in chapter X, where the butler and Dr Mortimer do most of the talking, and one in 16 in chapter II, the old legend of Hugo Baskerville.
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 IX, “La luz en la ventana”, where Watson and Sir Henry follow the butler through the dark house at two in the morning.