I. El obispo de Digne
« . . . . . , . : “ ”. . . ¿ ? . .»
Hugo’s novel retold for B1
Les Misérables Los miserables
Victor Hugo
This is a retelling of Victor Hugo’s novel in Spanish, not the original text: a MovaReader adaptation for readers who are ready for a long story told with all the tenses. In the catalog it is B1: about 13,400 words, 11 words per sentence on average. Its 14 chapters follow the main line of the five volumes of 1862, from the bishop’s silver candlesticks in Digne to the barricade of June 1832 and the sewers of Paris. The hero is called Juan Valjean here, as in the classic Spanish translations; in French and English he is Jean Valjean.
- B1
- 13 376 words
- 2-4 hours
Will this text hold?
A2
Earlier
At A2 the grammar will slow you down before the words do: besides the pretérito indefinido and imperfecto, the narration leans on the pluperfect, the conditional and the past subjunctive, as in si el obispo lo hubiera insultado, habría sabido qué hacer, at 11 words per sentence on average.
A2B1
This text
You can manage it at B1: sentences average 11 words, every tense appears where a novel would use it, and period words like presidiario or gendarmes are clear from the scene.
Check this passageB2
With room to spare
At B2 the retelling reads fast, with little translation: in 2-4 hours you can follow Valjean from Digne to the barricade before moving on to the complete Spanish texts, which start at B2 in the catalog.
Start readingSentences average 11 words, not much more than in the A2 adaptations, so the step up lies in the grammar and the vocabulary rather than in the length. A word of 9 letters or more comes up about once in 21 words: more often than in the catalog’s Spanish A2 adaptations, such as Don Quixote (10 words per sentence, one long word in 36) or Alice in Wonderland (9 words, one in 32), and less often than in the complete texts at B2, where Unamuno’s Mist has 13 words per sentence and one long word in fourteen. This is the first step of the catalog where a MovaReader retelling uses all the tenses at a pace close to a real novel: the pluperfect (había robado), the conditional (habría sabido, sería una mentira) and the subjunctive after si and para que (si el obispo lo hubiera insultado, para que sacaran a Fauchelevent), together with reported speech and connectors such as sin embargo, mientras and en cuanto. Some of the long words are names, like Thenardier, Fauchelevent or Montfermeil, and words of the period, like presidiario or gendarmes, are clear from the scene. The difficulty is even: the 14 chapters have 10-13 words per sentence. Hence B1. This is the catalog’s assessment, not a certificate.
- 13 376
- words
- 11
- words in an average sentence
- 2-4
- hours of reading
MovaReader. Project Gutenberg
What it is about, without the ending
In 1815 Juan Valjean walks out of the galleys of Toulon after nineteen years, sentenced at first for stealing a loaf of bread. Every door in Digne is shut to him except the bishop’s, and that same night he steals the old man’s silver. When the gendarmes bring him back, the bishop tells them it was a gift and hands him the two candlesticks as well. Years later, under another name, Valjean owns a factory and is mayor of a northern town, where he takes up the cause of Fantine (Fantina in the book), a worker who has given everything for her little daughter Cosette. But the police inspector Javert has never stopped watching him, and an innocent man is about to be sentenced in his place. The story goes on to Cosette and the innkeepers who keep her as a servant, a hidden life behind a convent wall in Paris, young Marius (Mario in the book) and his love for her, a trap in a Paris tenement and the barricade of June 1832. How it ends for Valjean and Javert is not revealed here.
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Los miserables
V. Una tempestad bajo un cráneo
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Introducing himself in the perfect tense
Valjean speaks in the pretérito perfecto, the past that still reaches into today: he pasado diecinueve años, hoy he caminado, me han echado. Hace cuatro días que me dejaron libre: hace ... que measures the time since an event, “they set me free four days ago”, and the release itself is in the indefinido, dejaron. Una mujer me ha dicho que llamara aquí: after a verb of telling someone to do something Spanish uses the subjunctive, here llamara, “told me to knock here”. Mire usted is a polite command, “look”.
Thinking in conditionals
The whole passage is Valjean weighing what would happen if he kept silent. Si él callaba, si dejaba que...: si with the imperfect for a possibility he is facing, “if he kept quiet”. Dejar que takes the subjunctive: dejaba que lo condenaran, “let them convict him”. Sería and robaría are conditionals, “it would be”, “he would steal”. In entregársela two pronouns join the infinitive: se stands for le, “to him”, that is a Dios, and la is el alma, “to hand it over to him”.
Chapters
- IEl obispo de Digne
- IILos candelabros de plata
- IIIUna madre en Montfermeil
- IVEl señor Magdalena
- VUna tempestad bajo un cráneo
- VIEl juicio de Arras
- VIILa muñeca de Navidad
- VIIIEl muro del convento
- IXMario
- XLa trampa de la casa Gorbeau
- XIEl jardín de la calle Plumet
- XIILa barricada
- XIIILas cloacas de París
- XIVLa última luz
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 here that helps most where a past conditional meets a past subjunctive, as when Valjean cannot bear the bishop’s kindness: Si el obispo lo hubiera insultado, habría sabido qué hacer; pero aquella bondad era como una luz demasiado fuerte para sus ojos.
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Is this the original or a learner adaptation?
A learner adaptation, not the original and not a translation of the full novel: MovaReader retold Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables (French, 1862) in Spanish. The novel came out in 1862 in five volumes: Fantine, Cosette, Marius, L’idylle rue Plumet et l’épopée rue Saint-Denis and Jean Valjean. The retelling keeps the main line: the bishop and the candlesticks, Petit-Gervais (Gervasillo), Monsieur Madeleine in Montreuil-sur-Mer, Fantine, Javert, the Champmathieu trial, Cosette and the Thénardiers, the convent, Marius, the trap in the Gorbeau house, the barricade of 1832 and the sewers. Hugo’s long digressions, such as Waterloo, the history of convents and Paris slang, are cut to a few lines or left out, and the whole story fits into 14 chapters and about 13,400 words. The complete novel is not in the catalog in any language.
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 often be words of prison and the street, such as presidio, cadena or barricada.
Can I translate a whole sentence?
The Reader plan translates whole sentences. They are not long here, 11 words on average, so you will need it mostly where the grammar thickens: in Valjean’s night of doubt, as in Si él callaba, si dejaba que lo condenaran, entonces todo lo que había hecho desde Digne sería una mentira, and in the bishop’s words, as in usted ya no pertenece al mal, sino al bien. The free plan also translates single words, up to a daily limit.
How many hours does it take?
The whole adaptation takes 2-4 hours at the pace of someone who still translates new words. A chapter averages about 960 words, or 10-16 minutes of reading, so one evening covers three or four chapters.
Where does the text get easier?
The difficulty is even: each of the 14 chapters averages 10-13 words per sentence, so no stretch is clearly easier. Long words vary more: in chapter XIII, in the sewers, one word in 33 has 9 letters or more, and in chapter VIII, about the convent, one in 15, with words like jardinero, campanilla and superiora.
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, “La muñeca de Navidad”, where a stranger takes the heavy bucket from Cosette in the dark wood.