I. Juanito Santa Cruz
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Two married women in Madrid, for B2
Fortunata and Jacinta Fortunata y Jacinta
Benito Pérez Galdós, 1887
Benito Pérez Galdós’s complete original novel, not an adaptation, from the 1887 edition of Imprenta de La Guirnalda. In the catalog it is B2: about 393,000 words and 16 words per sentence on average. 31 chapters in four parts follow two women tied to the same man in Madrid of the 1870s; the early chapters on the Santa Cruz family are the slowest, the rest runs closer to everyday scenes and conversation.
- B2
- 393 066 words
- 66-109 hours
Will this text hold?
B1
Earlier
At B1 the first chapters will be slow going: long sentences full of asides, the history of a trading family, and 19th-century forms such as quedóse need unpacking, with a translated word every few lines.
B1B2
This text
You can manage it at B2: from chapter V of Part One most sentences are about 15 words, and scenes and conversations carry the story. The opening chapters and the narrator’s digressions can be read slowly, translating single words.
Check this passageC1
With room to spare
At C1 the novel reads freely; only the narrator’s social and political digressions on Restoration Madrid, and the long closing chapter, ask for patience.
Start readingThe average sentence has 16 words and one word in twelve has 9 letters or more. That is longer than Doña Perfecta (15 words) but close to Misericordia (18) and La Regenta (19), the other long B2 novels of the catalog, and it stays under the one-in-ten long words that mark its C1 texts. The difficulty is uneven: the first four chapters, with the history of the Santa Cruz family and its shop, average about 23 words per sentence, chapter V of Part Two (Las Micaelas por fuera) about 26, and the rest about 15, with some chapters at 12-13 where dialogue carries the page. Hence B2. This is the catalog’s assessment, not a certificate.
- 393 066
- words
- 16
- words in an average sentence
- 66-109
- hours of reading
- 1887
- Imprenta de La Guirnalda
Imprenta de La Guirnalda, 1887. Project Gutenberg
What it is about, without the ending
Juanito Santa Cruz, the spoiled heir of a wealthy Madrid family of cloth merchants, has a passing affair with Fortunata, a girl of the people, and then marries the gentle Jacinta, chosen by his family. The marriage gives Jacinta no child, and Fortunata, who goes on to marry the sickly Maximiliano Rubín, keeps coming back into their lives. Around them the book draws the shops, convents, cafés and slums of Madrid under the Restoration. How the rivalry between the two women ends is not revealed here.
Compare two places
Fortunata y Jacinta
V. Las Micaelas por fuera
. , , . . , , , , .
Choose an underlined word.
Find the verb first
Galdós piles asides between commas: “Zalamero, juicioso y circunspecto como pocos, era de los que se ponen…”. Look for the verb era first, then go back to the commas: they only describe Zalamero.
“Los hay para…”: sorting into kinds
The narrator sorts the convents into kinds with “Los hay para monjas reclusas, y para las religiosas que viven en comunicación con el mundo”. Los hay (there are some for…) is a pattern worth keeping for describing groups. The clause “cuya mortificación consiste en…” then says what their penance is: caring for the old, the sick and children.
Where the text gets harder
I-IVlonger sentences at the start
V-VImostly shorter sentences
- VViaje de novios
- VIMás y más pormenores referentes a esta ilustre familia
- VIIGuillermina, virgen y fundadora
- VIIIEscenas de la vida íntima
- IXUna visita al Cuarto Estado
- XMás escenas de la vida íntima
- XIFinal, que viene a ser principio
- IMaximiliano Rubín
- IIAfanes y contratiempos de un redentor
- IIIDoña Lupe la de los Pavos
- IVNicolás y Juan Pablo Rubín. Propónense nuevas artes y medios de redención
- VLas Micaelas por fuera
- VILas Micaelas por dentro
- VIILa boda y la luna de miel
- ICostumbres turcas
- IILa restauración vencedora
- IIILa revolución vencida
- IVUn curso de filosofía práctica
- VOtra restauración
- VINaturalismo espiritual
- VIILa idea... la pícara idea
- IEn la calle del Ave-María
- IIInsomnio
- IIIDisolución
- IVVida nueva
- VLa razón de la sinrazón
- VIFinal
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
In the opening chapter, a phrase such as “Por el contrario, Santa Cruz y Villalonga se ponían siempre en la grada más alta, envueltos en sus capas y más parecidos a conspiradores que a estudiantes” shows why translating the whole sentence in Reader helps: the verb comes early, but the description trails on to the end.
ReaderIf this book is not the one
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Before you read
Is this the original or a learner adaptation?
It is the original, not a learner’s abridgement: Benito Pérez Galdós’s complete novel, all four parts and 31 chapters. The text comes from Project Gutenberg and follows the edition of Imprenta de La Guirnalda, Madrid, 1887; the novel first appeared in 1886-1887.
Is there an audiobook?
Fortunata and Jacinta has no audiobook on MovaReader: here the novel is read on screen. The translation appears when you tap a word, and you will need it most for the vocabulary of 19th-century trade, religion and politics, such as incautación or mortificación.
Can I translate a whole sentence?
Yes, with the Reader plan. In this novel it helps most in the long opening chapters, for example “Por el contrario, Santa Cruz y Villalonga se ponían siempre en la grada más alta, envueltos en sus capas y más parecidos a conspiradores que a estudiantes”. Without the plan, single words are translated up to the daily limit.
How many hours does it take?
The whole novel takes about 66-109 hours: the pace of someone reading with translation of new words, slower than a native speaker’s. Chapters run from about 3,500 to 34,000 words, so a short one makes an evening and the longest takes several sittings.
Where does the text get easier?
From chapter V of Part One, Viaje de novios. The first four chapters, on the Santa Cruz family and its trade, average about 23 words per sentence; after them the text settles near 15, and chapters that run on dialogue come down to 12-13. Chapter V of Part Two, Las Micaelas por fuera, is the one long spike, at about 26.
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 you can return to the novel every evening where you left off. Any of the 31 chapters also opens from the contents on this page; the numbering restarts in each of the four parts.