I. Nacido en el río
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A 16th-century novella adapted for A2
Lazarillo de Tormes Lazarillo de Tormes
Anonymous
This is a retelling in simpler Spanish, not the original text of the anonymous 1554 novella: a MovaReader adaptation for readers who can already follow the past tenses. Lázaro, a miller’s son from near Salamanca, tells in his own voice how as a boy he became a blind beggar’s guide and then served one master after another, going hungry with almost every one. In the catalog it is A2: about 7,400 words, 10 words per sentence on average, and 10 chapters that follow the prologue and all seven parts of the original.
- A2
- 7 360 words
- 1-2 hours
Will this text hold?
A1
Earlier
At A1 it comes too early: Lázaro narrates in the past tenses (nací, conté, tenía, decía), and sentences run to 10 words on average, against 6-7 in the A1 tales.
A1A2
This text
Right for A2: the episodes are short and funny, told in past tenses you already know, and the novella itself says what a blanca or a bula was.
Check this passageB1
With room to spare
At B1 the novella reads easily in 1-2 hours with hardly any translation, a good way to know this classic’s plot before you take on the complete Spanish texts, which start at B2 in the catalog.
Start readingWith 10 words per sentence on average, Lázaro’s story matches the A2 Don Quixote and runs longer than A1 tales such as The Three Little Pigs, which keep to 6. Lázaro tells his own story in the past tenses: events in the pretérito indefinido, habits and background in the imperfecto, and wishes like ¡Que Dios te dé a ti esa vida! come up in the characters’ lines. A word of 9 letters or more turns up about once in 46 words, less often than in the A2 Don Quixote (once in 36), and the most frequent one is longaniza. Things of the period are explained by the text itself: blancas are called small coins, and a bula a church paper that promised forgiveness for money. From the first chapter to the tenth the pace stays at 9-10 words per sentence, so there is neither a hard opening nor an easier ending. Above A2 the Spanish catalog jumps straight to B2, and even Unamuno’s Mist there has 13 words per sentence and a long word in every 14, three times as often as here. That places Lazarillo at A2. This is the catalog’s assessment, not a certificate.
- 7 360
- words
- 10
- words in an average sentence
- 1-2
- hours of reading
MovaReader. Project Gutenberg
What it is about, without the ending
Lázaro is born right on the river Tormes, in the mill where his father works. His father dies at war, and later his mother hands the boy to a blind beggar as a guide, and at the stone bull of Salamanca the old man gives him his first cruel lesson. Hungry Lázaro sips the blind man’s wine through a straw, then through a tiny hole in the jug sealed with wax, eats the grapes three at a time and swaps a sausage for a turnip. Next a stingy priest in Maqueda locks the bread in a chest, and Lázaro gets a key from a tinker. In Toledo he serves a proud gentleman who carries himself like a count’s relative but has not a single coin, so it is Lázaro who begs bread for both of them. A friar, a seller of papal bulls and his tricks, a chaplain and a constable are still ahead. How Lázaro reaches the “summit of good fortune” is not revealed here.
Compare two places
Lazarillo de Tormes
II. El toro y el jarro
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Choose an underlined word.
A prologue written as a letter
Lázaro writes to an important reader and addresses him with usted: Señor, usted me pide... After pedir que the verb goes into the subjunctive: me pide que le cuente, “you ask me to tell”. No hay libro tan malo que no tenga algo bueno takes the subjunctive too, because no such book exists: “there is no book so bad that it has nothing good in it”. Llegar a buen puerto, literally “to reach a good harbour”, means to come through in the end.
Once, or every day
The preparation happens once, so it is in the pretérito indefinido: hice un agujero muy pequeño en el fondo del jarro y lo tapé con cera, “I made a tiny hole in the bottom of the jug and sealed it with wax”. After that the trick repeats every day, and the imperfecto takes over: decía que tenía frío, me sentaba, la cera se derretía, el vino caía. Me moría por él: “I was dying for it”. Mandaba al diablo el jarro: “he cursed the jug”. No dirá usted que me lo bebo yo: the boy speaks to the blind man with usted, “you can’t say I’m the one drinking it”.
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 a sentence in one go, which comes in handy for Lázaro’s bitter jokes, such as Estaba dispuesto a perder un ojo si él perdía los dos, y eso que no tenía ninguno.
ReaderIf this book is not the one
Spanish books A1 Earlier Lazarillo de Tormes La vida de Lazarillo de Tormes y de sus fortunas y adversidades Another book by the same author B2
All books at this level
Before you read
Is this the original or a learner adaptation?
This is a MovaReader adaptation, not the original text: MovaReader retold in simple Spanish the anonymous novella La vida de Lazarillo de Tormes y de sus fortunas y adversidades, whose earliest known editions appeared in 1554. The language and length have changed: modern Spanish instead of 16th-century Spanish, 10 words per sentence on average, 10 chapters and about 7,400 words, while the full text on Project Gutenberg is almost three times longer. The prologue and all seven parts of the original remain, with every one of Lázaro’s masters from the blind beggar to the constable, and so do the main scenes: the stone bull, the wine jug, the grapes, the sausage, the bread chest, the gentleman’s empty house and the bull seller’s sermon in a village church. The scenes added that same year in the Alcalá edition, such as the horns on the wall in Escalona or the bull seller’s second trick with a cross, are left out, and the narrator’s reflections are shortened.
Is there an audiobook?
This novella has no audio: the page gives you a text to read, not a voice recording. Here the words that most often need a tap are everyday things of the 16th century, like arca, jarro, blanca or longaniza, and each tap shows the translation right beside the word.
Can I translate a whole sentence?
For a full sentence at once you need the Reader plan. You will rarely need it here, since sentences average 10 words, but it helps with the sayings Lázaro turns into jokes, like la ocasión hace al ladrón or escapé del trueno y caí en el relámpago. For single words the free plan is enough, until its daily limit runs out.
How many hours does it take?
About 7,400 words take 1-2 hours when you stop to translate new words. Each of the 10 chapters takes 6-15 minutes, so the novella splits easily into short sittings.
Where does the text get easier?
No part of it is easier: from the first chapter to the last, sentences hold at 9-10 words. Only long words vary: in chapter I, where Lázaro explains why he is writing, one word in 28 has 9 letters or more, and in chapter VII, “La uña de vaca”, just one in 110.
Will my place in the book be saved?
Yes, for signed-in readers: your last position and all the words you tapped are stored, so you pick up where you left off. The contents on this page lead straight to any chapter, for instance VIII, “La casa donde nunca comen ni beben”, where Lázaro decides a funeral is heading for his own house.