I. Capítulo 1
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A naval novel told by a boy, for C1
Trafalgar Trafalgar
Benito Pérez Galdós, 1882
Benito Pérez Galdós’s novel of 1873, the first of the Episodios nacionales, as a complete original and not an adaptation; the text follows the 1882 illustrated edition. In the catalog it is C1: about 51,000 words and 24 words per sentence on average. 17 chapters narrated by Gabriel Araceli, a boy from Cádiz who finds himself on a ship of the line on the eve of the battle; the opening chapters and the shipboard chapters are the hardest, the dialogue runs lighter.
- C1
- 51 014 words
- 9-14 hours
Will this text hold?
B2
Earlier
At B2 the opening chapters will be slow going: sentences of 30-39 words, old forms such as parecíame and preguntéles, and ship terms like arboladura and escotillas will need a glossary.
B2C1
This text
You can manage it at C1: the long periods of the first chapters and the sailing vocabulary are the main work, while the dialogue and the shorter-sentence chapters (VI, VII, XV-XVII) read steadily.
Check this passageC2
With room to spare
At C2 the novel reads freely; only the narrator’s digressions and the technical rigging terms may still send you to a word list.
Start readingThe average sentence has 24 words, and one word in ten has 9 letters or more (9.9%), right at the catalog’s C1 threshold. For comparison, Marianela by the same author is B2, at 15 words per sentence and about the same length; the other C1 books in the Spanish catalog run from 17 to 26 words per sentence. The difficulty is uneven: chapters I, III, VIII and XIII average from 30 to 39 words per sentence, while chapters VI, VII, XV, XVI and XVII run at 17-21. The old narrator’s long periods and the sailing vocabulary (arboladura, cabrestantes, escotillas) keep the long-word share high, with about one word in nine in chapters IX, X and XIII. Hence C1. This is the catalog’s assessment, not a certificate.
- 51 014
- words
- 24
- words in an average sentence
- 9-14
- hours of reading
- 1882
- Administración de La Guirnalda y Episodios Nacionales
Administración de La Guirnalda y Episodios Nacionales, 1882. Project Gutenberg
What it is about, without the ending
Gabriel Araceli, a poor boy from the Viña quarter of Cádiz, tells in old age how, at fourteen, he was drawn into the greatest sea battle of his time. He takes service with Don Alonso Gutiérrez de Cisniega, a retired naval officer, whose sharp-tempered wife Doña Francisca hates every ship afloat and whose daughter Rosita is the light of the house. Beside them stands the old one-legged sailor Marcial, nicknamed Medio-hombre, who still dreams of glory at sea. In October 1805 the Spanish and French fleets gather at Cádiz, and Gabriel goes aboard the Santísima Trinidad, the largest ship in the world. How the battle goes, and what becomes of Gabriel and of those he loves, is not revealed here.
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Trafalgar
IX. Capítulo 9
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Choose an underlined word.
A hero who starts like a rogue
Pablos, el buscón de Segovia is the rogue hero of Quevedo’s picaresque novel, who also opens his story with his humble family. The narrator borrows the joke: no noble surnames, only Adán as an ancestor. The first sentence is long but hangs on one main verb, no imitaré; everything after quienes is the list of what he will not do. Emperador de Trapisonda is a mock-grand title from chivalric novels.
A sentence that corrects itself
The narrator interrupts his own list: estupor, then ¡qué digo estupor! (“what am I saying, astonishment!”), then mi entusiasmo, mi enajenación. Read the exclamation as a step up, not as a new sentence. The main clause only arrives with cuando me vi cerca del Santísima Trinidad, and aquel alcázar de madera renames the ship as a wooden fortress.
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
In chapter IX the sentence beginning “Figúrense ustedes cuál sería mi estupor, ¡qué digo estupor!” piles up corrections and asides before it reaches its main clause: translating the whole sentence in Reader keeps the thread.
ReaderIf this book is not the one
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Before you read
Is this the original or a learner adaptation?
It is the original, not a learner’s abridgement: Benito Pérez Galdós’s complete novel Trafalgar, all 17 chapters, first published in 1873 as the first of the Episodios nacionales. The reader follows the 1882 illustrated edition (Administración de La Guirnalda y Episodios Nacionales), taken from Project Gutenberg.
Is there an audiobook?
Trafalgar has no audiobook on MovaReader: here the novel is read on screen. The translation appears when you tap a word, and you will need it most for naval terms such as arboladura, escotillas or cabrestantes.
Can I translate a whole sentence?
Yes, with the Reader plan. In this novel it helps most in the long periods of chapter I and chapter III, and in sentences like “Figúrense ustedes cuál sería mi estupor, ¡qué digo estupor!” in chapter IX. Without the plan, single words are translated up to the daily limit.
How many hours does it take?
The whole novel takes about 9-14 hours: the pace of someone reading with translation of new words, slower than a native speaker’s. Chapters run from about 1,300 words (chapter III) to 4,900 (chapter XV), so one or two make an evening.
Where does the text get easier?
It comes in waves rather than getting steadily easier. Chapter I averages 34 words per sentence, chapter III 38, chapter VIII 31 and chapter XIII 30. Chapters VI, VII, XV, XVI and XVII are the lightest, at 17-21 words, with more dialogue.
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 novel every evening where you left off. Any of the 17 chapters also opens from the contents on this page, for example chapter IX.