I. Un señor muy puntual
, . .
« , », .
«, , .»
« . .»
. .
An A2 adaptation of Verne’s novel
Around the World in Eighty Days La vuelta al mundo en 80 días
Jules Verne
This is a retelling of Jules Verne’s novel in simple Spanish, not the original text: a MovaReader adaptation for readers who already know the past tenses and want the whole race around the world. In the catalog it is A2: about 4,900 words, 9 words per sentence on average. 10 chapters follow the novel of 1872 from the wager at the Reform Club in London to the last evening of the journey.
- A2
- 4 933 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 (salió, dijo, llegó, tenía), at 9 words per sentence on average, while the A1 stories in the catalog stay at 5-7.
A1A2
This text
You can manage it at A2: sentences are short, the plot moves in the past tenses you know, and the travel words (barco, tren, puerto, elefante) keep coming back.
Check this passageB1
With room to spare
At B1 the adaptation reads with room to spare: about an hour for the whole trip around the world, before the longer B1 adaptations such as Los tres mosqueteros (11 words per sentence, about 13,500 words) and then the full Spanish texts, which start at B2 in the catalog.
Start readingThe average sentence has 9 words, the usual A2 length in the catalog: Spanish adaptations at A2 run at 9-10 words per sentence, A1 stories at 5-7 and B1 adaptations at 11-12. The story is told in the past, with events in the pretérito indefinido and background in the imperfecto, and with plenty of short dialogue in quotation marks. A word of 9 letters or more comes up 2.8% of the time (about one word in 36), and more than a third of those words are the name Picaporte. The difficulty is even: each of the 10 chapters has 9-10 words per sentence. Hence A2: easier than a B1 adaptation such as Los tres mosqueteros, at 11 words per sentence, and more demanding than the A1 fairy tales. This is the catalog’s assessment, not a certificate.
- 4 933
- words
- 9
- words in an average sentence
- 1
- hour of reading
MovaReader. Project Gutenberg
What it is about, without the ending
London, 1872. Phileas Fogg, a man who lives by the clock, bets twenty thousand pounds at the Reform Club that he can travel around the world in eighty days. He leaves that same evening with his new servant Picaporte (Passepartout in the original), a Frenchman who has been a singer, a gymnast and a fireman. At Suez a policeman called Fix decides that Fogg is the thief who robbed the Bank of England, and he follows him from port to port, waiting for his arrest order to arrive. In India an elephant carries the travellers through a forest, where they try to save a young widow from her husband’s funeral pyre. Storms, a drugged servant, a Japanese circus, an attack by the Sioux and a steamer burned plank by plank for fuel stand between Fogg and the clock of the Reform Club. Whether he arrives on time is not revealed here.
Compare two places
La vuelta al mundo en 80 días
IV. El elefante
.
« , , . .»
, . . , . , . , .
« », .
« », .
Choose an underlined word.
One action after another
Each new action in the scene takes the pretérito indefinido: llevó, puso, miró, salió. Read the verbs in order and you can follow the story without translating. Mr Fogg speaks to his servant with usted: Usted se va hoy mismo.
Prices and refusals
The haggling is a lesson in big numbers: mil libras, dos mil libras. Notice por for a price (mucho dinero por un elefante) and the repeated dijo que no, which tells the whole story of the refusals in three short words.
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 that helps most with Fogg’s calm one-line orders, such as Ese gas lo pagará usted de su sueldo, where the object comes first and lo repeats it.
ReaderIf this book is not the one
All books at this levelBefore you read
Is this the original or a learner adaptation?
A learner adaptation, not the original: MovaReader retold Jules Verne’s Le Tour du monde en quatre-vingts jours (1872) in simple Spanish. The language and length have changed: modern Spanish in the past tenses, 9 words per sentence on average, 10 chapters and about 4,900 words, while the original has 37 chapters and is many times longer. The main line of the novel remains: the wager at the Reform Club, the servant Picaporte (Passepartout in the original) and the policeman Fix, Suez and Bombay, the elephant and the rescue of Aouda, Hong Kong, the Yokohama circus, the Sioux, the steamer burned for fuel and the last days in England. Smaller episodes, such as the stop in Singapore and the Mormons on the train, are left out. The complete novel is not in the catalog yet.
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 travel words, such as aduana, trineo or casco.
Can I translate a whole sentence?
The Reader plan translates whole sentences. Here they are short, 9 words on average, so you will seldom need one translated: mostly Fogg’s calm orders, like Ese gas lo pagará usted de su sueldo, where the object comes first, and short turns like Hay que buscar otro barco. The free plan also translates single words, up to a daily limit.
How many hours does it take?
The whole adaptation takes about an hour at the pace of someone who still translates new words. A chapter averages about 490 words, or 5-8 minutes of reading, so one evening easily covers the whole trip around the world.
Where does the text get easier?
The difficulty is even: each of the 10 chapters averages 9-10 words per sentence, so there is no easier stretch. Only long words vary a little: chapter V, with the sacerdotes and the procesión, has the most (3.4% of the words), and chapter IX, aboard the Henrietta, the fewest (2.0%).
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 circo de Yokohama”, where Picaporte ends up in a very odd job.