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Three Grimm tales of the little folk for A1
The Elves and the Shoemaker Los duendes y el zapatero
Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm
This is a retelling of the Brothers Grimm tale in simple Spanish, not the original text: a MovaReader adaptation for readers who are just starting to read in Spanish. The tale comes from Kinder- und Hausmärchen, first published in 1812, and the retelling follows the revised edition of 1857. In the catalog it is A1: about 3,500 words told in the present tense, with sentences of 6 words on average. 11 short chapters and three stories about the little folk: a poor shoemaker who finds his work done every morning, a servant girl invited to a christening inside a mountain, and a mother whose baby is swapped in the cradle.
- A1
- 3 476 words
- 1 hour
Will this text hold?
A1
This text
You can manage it at A1: sentences are short, the stories stay in the present tense, and words like cuero or escoba translate with a tap.
Check this passageA2
With room to spare
At A2 these tales read almost without translation: useful for gaining speed and confidence before longer books in Spanish.
Start readingThe average sentence has 6 words: the stories move in short present-tense statements, and much of the text is the characters’ lines in quotation marks. A word of 9 letters or more comes up about once in 180 words, and the most frequent ones are everyday words such as bolsillos (pockets) and pantalones (trousers). The difficulty is even: each of the 11 chapters has 5-7 words per sentence. Hansel y Gretel, another Brothers Grimm tale in the catalog, is A2 with 9 words per sentence, and full texts in Spanish start at B2: Unamuno’s Mist has 13 words per sentence and one long word in fourteen. Hence A1. This is the catalog’s assessment, not a certificate.
- 3 476
- words
- 6
- words in an average sentence
- 1
- hour of reading
MovaReader. Wikisource
What it is about, without the ending
A poor shoemaker has leather left for just one pair of shoes. He cuts it out in the evening, and in the morning the shoes stand finished on his table, so well made that a customer pays more than usual. It happens again every night, and shortly before Christmas the shoemaker and his wife hide behind the hanging clothes to see who is helping them. Two more stories follow: a servant girl finds a letter from the little folk asking her to be godmother, and a mother finds a strange child in her baby’s cradle. How each story ends is not revealed here.
Compare two places
Los duendes y el zapatero
VIII. En la montaña hueca
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« », . « ».
« , », . « ».
Choose an underlined word.
Ya están hechos
Hecho is the participle of hacer, “to make”. With estar it describes a result: ¡Los zapatos ya están hechos!, “the shoes are already made”. The same word comes back in No hay ni un punto mal hecho, “not a single stitch is badly made”. Se queda quieto: quedarse with an adjective means to stay in a state, here “he stands still”. Ya means “already”: the shoemaker comes down to work, and the work is done.
A bed of ebony, a cradle of ivory
Spanish names the material with de: una cama de ébano, “an ebony bed”, una cuna de marfil, “an ivory cradle”, botones de perlas, bordados de oro. With ser the same de says what a thing is made of: la bañera es de oro, “the bath is made of gold”. Es tan bonito que no hay palabras para decirlo: tan with an adjective and then que gives “so beautiful that there are no words to say it”.
Chapters
- IPrimera historia: el zapatero pobre
- IIZapatos por la mañana
- IIIMás cuero, más zapatos
- IV¿Quién nos ayuda?
- VRegalos para los duendes
- VILos duendes bailan y se van
- VIISegunda historia: una carta para la criada
- VIIIEn la montaña hueca
- IXLa escoba en el rincón
- XTercera historia: el niño extraño
- XIAgua en dos cáscaras de huevo
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 the whole sentence where simple words add up to an unfamiliar phrase, as in Los duendes se lo piden mucho, “the elves keep begging her”.
ReaderIf this book is not the one
All books at this level
Before you read
Is this the original or a learner adaptation?
An adaptation, not the original text. It is MovaReader’s own retelling in simple Spanish of the Brothers Grimm tale Die Wichtelmänner from Kinder- und Hausmärchen, first published in 1812. The tale is really three short stories about the little folk, and the retelling follows the revised edition of 1857, which adds the elves’ song and the broom the servant girl leaves in the corner. The language and length have changed: the present tense, 6 words per sentence on average, and a few scenes opened up into short conversations, so the 11 chapters, about 3,500 words, are much longer than the tale itself. All three stories remain: the shoemaker who finds his shoes finished every morning and the gifts of tiny clothes, the servant girl invited to be godmother inside a hollow mountain, and the mother whose baby is swapped in the cradle. The full text of the tale is not in the catalog.
Is there an audiobook?
No, there is no audio version of this book on MovaReader; the text is read on screen. Tap an unfamiliar word and its translation appears: here that will mostly be words of the workshop and the house, such as cuero (leather), escoba (broom) or cáscaras (shells).
Can I translate a whole sentence?
Yes: whole-sentence translation comes with the Reader plan. But sentences in this book average 6 words, so you will rarely need a whole one translated: mostly lines like Los duendes se lo piden mucho or No puedes decir que no a los duendes, where the words are simple but the pattern is not. Without the plan you can translate single words until the daily limit runs out.
How many hours does it take?
About an hour for the whole book: the pace of someone who still translates new words, not a native speaker’s. There are 11 chapters of roughly 250 to 400 words each, so a chapter is easy to read in one sitting.
Where does the text get easier?
The difficulty is even from start to finish: each of the 11 chapters averages 5-7 words per sentence, and the three stories are told the same way, so the second and third are no harder than the first. Chapter II, where the shoemaker finds the shoes and the talk is all short questions, has the shortest sentences at about 5; chapter III, where his trade starts to grow, runs slightly longer at about 7.
Will my place in the book be saved?
Yes. After you sign in, the reader remembers where you stopped and which words you opened. The contents on this page also open any of the 11 chapters directly, for example chapter VII, “Segunda historia: una carta para la criada”, where the second story begins.