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I. Capítulo primero
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A spoken-voice autobiography for C2
The Book of Her Life Libro de la vida
Teresa of Ávila, 1927
Teresa of Ávila’s complete autobiography, not an adaptation, in the 1927 Espasa-Calpe edition with its old spelling. In the catalog it is C2: about 112,400 words and 39 words per sentence on average. 40 chapters in which a Carmelite nun tells, at her confessor’s request, how she learned to pray; the sentences are long, but the words are plain.
- C2
- 112 419 words
- 19-31 hours
Will this text hold?
C1
Earlier
At B2 sentences of 30 to 50 words will tire you quickly, and old spellings such as ansí, mesma and á for a need unpacking.
C1C2
This text
You can manage it at C2: the words are plain and what tests you is the length of the sentences, so read a chapter at a time and translate a whole sentence when the thread of its clauses is lost.
Check this passageThe average sentence has 39 words: close to Paradise Lost (38) and a little below Don Quijote and La perfecta casada (43 each). Teresa wrote fast, for her confessor, and let clause follow clause without a pause. The vocabulary is plain: only about one word in eighteen has 9 letters or more, far fewer than in the C1 books, so the level is set by sentence length alone. The chapters differ little: they average from about 30 to 52 words per sentence, with no easy stretch. Hence C2. This is the catalog’s assessment, not a certificate.
- 112 419
- words
- 39
- words in an average sentence
- 19-31
- hours of reading
- 1927
- Espasa-Calpe
Espasa-Calpe, 1927. Wikisource
What it is about, without the ending
Teresa tells her own life: a childhood in a large family in Ávila, when she sets out with her brother for the land of the Moors in search of martyrdom; the death of her mother when she was about twelve; a passion for novels of chivalry. Then a convent school, the Carmelite convent of the Encarnación, a grave illness, years when she prays and is distracted by turns, and a time when she gives up prayer altogether. Slowly a new life begins: prayer, visions, the doubts of her confessors, the plan of a reformed convent. How it all turns out is not revealed here.
Compare two places
Libro de la vida
XXIX. Capítulo XXIX
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Choose an underlined word.
A chain of clauses
The sentence about the plan is built on three joints. Pidiendo por amor de Dios (“begging for the love of God”) gives the how, and para que allá nos descabezasen (“so that they would behead us there”) the aim, with the subjunctive after para que. Later, sino que el tener padres nos parecia el mayor embarazo means “except that having parents seemed the biggest obstacle”: sino que here is “except that”, not “but”. Old forms such as ansí and pareciame without an accent are Teresa’s ordinary Spanish.
Seeming, not stating
Teresa does not say what happened but what it seemed to her: me parecia (“it seemed to me”) comes back again and again, and the description is built on it. Quiso el Señor le viese ansí means “the Lord wished me to see him so”: ansí is the old form of así, and the subjunctive viese follows the verb of wishing. Muy subidos is “very exalted”, the highest ranks of angels.
Chapters
- ICapítulo primero
- IICapítulo II
- IIICapítulo III
- IVCapítulo IV
- VCapítulo V
- VICapítulo VI
- VIICapítulo VII
- VIIICapítulo VIII
- IXCapítulo IX
- XCapítulo X
- XICapítulo XI
- XIICapítulo XII
- XIIICapítulo XIII
- XIVCapítulo XIV
- XVCapítulo XV
- XVICapítulo XVI
- XVIICapítulo XVII
- XVIIICapítulo XVIII
- XIXCapítulo XIX
- XXCapítulo XX
- XXICapítulo XXI
- XXIICapítulo XXII
- XXIIICapítulo XXIII
- XXIVCapítulo XXIV
- XXVCapítulo XXV
- XXVICapítulo XXVI
- XXVIICapítulo XXVII
- XXVIIICapítulo XXVIII
- XXIXCapítulo XXIX
- XXXCapítulo XXX
- XXXICapítulo XXXI
- XXXIICapítulo XXXII
- XXXIIICapítulo XXXIII
- XXXIVCapítulo XXXIV
- XXXVCapítulo XXXV
- XXXVICapítulo XXXVI
- XXXVIICapítulo XXXVII
- XXXVIIICapítulo XXXVIII
- XXXIXCapítulo XXXIX
- XLCapítulo XL
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 chapter I, a sentence like “como vía los martirios, que por Dios los santos pasaban, pareciame compraban muy barato el ir á gozar de Dios” has no clear joints: translating the whole sentence in Reader shows how its clauses hang together.
ReaderIf this book is not the one
All books at this levelBefore you read
Is this the original or a learner adaptation?
It is the original, not a learner’s abridgement: Teresa’s complete autobiography, all 40 chapters with her short prologue and the closing letter. The text follows the 1927 Espasa-Calpe edition (Madrid) as transcribed on Wikisource, with its old spelling kept. Teresa wrote the book in the 1560s; it was first printed in 1588.
Is there an audiobook?
The Book of Her Life has no audiobook on MovaReader: here the book is read on screen. The translation appears when you tap a word, and you will need it most for old or rare words such as descabezasen or cherubines.
Can I translate a whole sentence?
Yes, with the Reader plan. Teresa’s sentences average 39 words, so translating a whole sentence helps most with a thread like “como vía los martirios, que por Dios los santos pasaban, pareciame compraban muy barato el ir á gozar de Dios” in chapter I. Without the plan, single words are translated up to the daily limit.
How many hours does it take?
The whole book takes about 19-31 hours: the pace of someone reading with translation of new words, slower than a native speaker’s. Chapters run from about 1,000 to 4,800 words, so one or two make an evening.
Where does the text get easier?
It stays even. The average sentence is 39 words and the chapters range from about 30 to 52 words per sentence, with no easy stretch. The story helps more than the syntax: the early chapters about her childhood and the convent are concrete, while the later chapters on prayer and visions are more abstract.
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 come back to the book every evening where you left off. Any of the 40 chapters also opens from the contents on this page, for example chapter I, which opens with Teresa’s short prologue.