II. El baile de Meryton
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A B1 retelling of Austen’s novel in Spanish
Pride and Prejudice Orgullo y prejuicio
Jane Austen
This is a MovaReader retelling of Jane Austen’s novel in Spanish, not the original text and not a translation of the full novel: it is written for B1 readers who want a long story with all the tenses they are learning. In the catalog it is B1: about 12,800 words, 12 words per sentence on average, in 14 chapters. It keeps the main line of the novel of 1813, from the ball at Meryton and Mr Darcy’s snub to Pemberley, and it keeps Austen’s irony, starting with the first sentence about a single man with a fortune who must need a wife. Nothing is taken from the films: every scene is in the novel.
- B1
- 12 802 words
- 2-4 hours
Will this text hold?
A2
Earlier
At A2 you will follow the plot, but the grammar will stop you: the pluperfect, the conditional and the imperfect subjunctive (Si lo hubiera sabido, no habría ido), sentences of 12 words instead of the 9-10 of the A2 shelf, and irony that is easy to take literally.
A2B1
This text
Right for B1: all the tenses you are learning in sentences of 12 words, everyday vocabulary, long words that are mostly names, and 14 chapters of about 800 to 1,100 words that read one at a time.
Check this passageB2
With room to spare
At B2 this retelling is easy reading for a few evenings. The complete Spanish texts on the B2 shelf come next, such as Unamuno’s Mist, with 13 words per sentence and one long word in fourteen.
Start readingThe average sentence has 12 words, close to the complete texts: Unamuno’s Mist, at B2, has 13, while the Spanish A2 adaptations have 9-10, Don Quixote 10. What keeps this retelling below B2 is vocabulary: a word of 9 letters or more comes up about once in 23 words (4.4%), against once in 14 in Mist (6.9%), and a third of those long words are names, Elizabeth alone 96 times. What lifts it above A2 is grammar. This is the first step of the catalog where a MovaReader retelling uses all the tenses at almost the pace of a complete text: the pluperfect when the story looks back (había luchado mucho contra aquel sentimiento), the conditional and the imperfect subjunctive (Si lo hubiera sabido esta mañana, no habría ido a verlo), reported speech and connectors such as aunque, sin embargo, mientras and en cuanto. About a third of the words are dialogue in «», and that is where Austen’s irony lives: the words are simple, the meaning is often the opposite. The difficulty is even: each of the 14 chapters has 11-13 words per sentence. Hence B1. This is the catalog’s assessment, not a certificate.
- 12 802
- words
- 12
- words in an average sentence
- 2-4
- hours of reading
MovaReader. Project Gutenberg
What it is about, without the ending
Netherfield Park has a new tenant, the rich and friendly Mr Bingley, and Mrs Bennet, with five unmarried daughters and a house that will pass to a cousin, sees a husband in him at once. At the ball in Meryton Bingley dances twice with the eldest, Jane, while his friend Mr Darcy, prouder and richer still, says that Elizabeth is not pretty enough to tempt him. Elizabeth laughs about it, but she does not forget. The charming officer Wickham tells her how Darcy cheated him, the pompous clergyman Mr Collins, heir to Longbourn, asks for her hand, and the Bingleys suddenly leave for London. In the spring, at Hunsford, under the eyes of the grand Lady Catherine de Bourgh, Elizabeth hears words she never expected and reads a letter that makes her look again at everyone she thought she knew. Whether pride and prejudice give way is not revealed here.
Compare two places
Orgullo y prejuicio
X. La primera declaración
« », . « . . ».
. , , . . , . , , . , , . , .
Choose an underlined word.
Not handsome enough
No está mal is faint praise, “she is not bad”, and Darcy means it as a snub. Lo bastante guapa para tentarme: lo bastante + adjective + para + infinitive, “pretty enough to tempt me”, with the pronoun me attached to the infinitive. Seguro que es muy simpática: after seguro que, “I’m sure that”, the verb stays in the indicative. Sacar a bailar: “to ask to dance”. Goza de is the tú command of gozar de, “enjoy”.
Reported speech in the past
Darcy’s own words come first, in the present: No puedo más and Permítame decirle, a polite command with usted and two pronouns attached. Then the narrator reports the rest, and every tense steps back: había luchado, the pluperfect, for what came before; estaba and decía, the imperfect, for how things stood; sería, the conditional, for what would follow, “that this marriage would be a fall”. Sentía desde hacía tiempo: “he had felt for a long time”.
Chapters
- IUn hombre soltero con una gran fortuna
- IIEl baile de Meryton
- IIIUn paseo por el barro
- IVEl primo Collins
- VLa historia del señor Wickham
- VIEl baile de Netherfield
- VIIDos propuestas
- VIIIUn invierno de cartas
- IXLos salones de Rosings
- XLa primera declaración
- XILa carta
- XIIPemberley
- XIIILa huida de Lydia
- XIVLa visita de lady Catherine
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 the irony hides in plain words, as in chapter IV: El señor Collins solo tuvo que pasar de Jane a Elizabeth, y lo hizo mientras la señora Bennet echaba leña al fuego, which tells you that his heart changed in a minute.
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 and not a translation of the full novel: MovaReader retold in Spanish Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, an English novel first published in 1813. The language and length have changed: modern Spanish with all the tenses, 12 words per sentence on average, 14 chapters and about 12,800 words, while the complete novel of 61 chapters is almost ten times longer. The main line remains: the Meryton ball and Darcy’s snub, Jane’s illness at Netherfield, Wickham’s story, Mr Collins and Charlotte, Rosings and Hunsford, Darcy’s letter, Pemberley, Lydia’s flight and Lady Catherine’s visit. Long dialogues and letters are condensed, and minor figures such as the Hursts and aunt Phillips have smaller parts. The complete novel is in the catalog in English, at level C1.
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 the vocabulary of manners and feelings, such as desprecio, orgullo or prometida.
Can I translate a whole sentence?
The Reader plan translates whole sentences. Here they average 12 words, and you will want one translated mostly where the grammar folds back on itself, as in Mr Bennet’s Tu madre no te volverá a ver si no te casas con el señor Collins, y yo no te volveré a ver si te casas con él, or in reported speech with the pluperfect and the conditional. 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 900 words, or 9-15 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 11-13 words per sentence, so there is no easier stretch. Only long words vary a little: one in 26 in chapters III and X, one in 19 in the last chapter, XIV, where Lady Catherine and her grand words come back.
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 XI, “La carta”, where Elizabeth reads what Darcy has to say for himself.