My Spanish teacher recommeded I read a book that was written in English and translated into Spanish. I thought of Harry Potter. I might buy a copy on Amazon in Spanish. Maybe there is another book written at like a 5th grade level (or below) I could try? Or maybe something nonfiction? I don’t know. It takes me like 10 minutes to read a page of text in Spanish. It’s really hard. But I want to keep practicing it. I’m excited about the next harry potter book coming out in July… Currently I don’t own any of the HP books, which means I’m not planning to buy the 6th one either. Anyone planning to read it in a few days who would like to lend it to me shortly thereafter? 
April 29, 2005
Reading in Spanish
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You don’t own ANY HP???? I’ve got ALLL of them AND i’m looking into helping out with Harrypalooza in the CWE this July.
Sad, so sad.
Don’t start with HP; do, like, a children’s book or something.
Comment by tanya — April 29, 2005 @ 12:06 pm
As much as I’m loathe to disagree with Tanya on literary matters, I’ve gotta. I bought the first four Harry Potter books before I left Russia and they were perfect. The language was on a good level and repetative enough to let me get the jist of words from context.
The trick to reading a book in a foreign language, and I cannot stress this enough, is to read it straight through with ZERO help from any reference book, unless you see a word, or even moreso, a verb, that you see repeated many, many times in short span that you, for some reason can’t figure out from context. The best feeling in the world, however, is when you get a new word from context. But it is absolutely essential that you barrel through paragraphs and chapters with as little reference as humanly possible, which I would imagine is the reason that pages take so long to read for you in Spanish. Don’t get it completely, just get it right.
Comment by Daniel Poth — April 29, 2005 @ 3:03 pm