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Short Stories in Spanish for Beginners
- Listen for Pleasure at Your Level, Expand Your Vocabulary and Learn Spanish the Fun Way!
- Narrated by: Javier Marzan
- Length: 4 hrs and 30 mins
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Short Stories in Spanish for Beginners
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Summary
Short Stories in Spanish for Beginners has been written especially for students from beginner to intermediate level, designed to give a sense of achievement, a feeling of progress and, most importantly, enjoyment! Mapped to A2-B1 on the Common European Framework of Reference, these eight captivating stories are designed to give you a sense of achievement and a feeling of progress when listening.
What does this book give you?
- Eight stories in a variety of exciting genres, from science fiction and crime to history and thriller - making the process fun while you learn a wide range of new vocabulary.
- Controlled language at your level, including the 1,000 most frequent words, to help you progress confidently.
- Authentic spoken dialogues, to help you learn conversational expressions and improve your speaking ability.
- Pleasure! It's much easier to learn a new language when you're having fun, and research shows that if you're enjoying listening in a foreign language, you won't experience the usual feelings of frustration - 'it's too hard!' 'I don't understand!'
- Accessible grammar so you learn new structures naturally, in a stress-free way.
Carefully curated to make learning a new language easy, these stories include key features that will support and consolidate your progress, including:
- A bilingual word list.
- Comprehension questions to aid your understanding.
- Full plot summary.
As a result, you will be able to focus on enjoying the stories, delighting in your improved range of vocabulary and grasp of the language, without ever feeling overwhelmed or frustrated. From science fiction to fantasy, to crime and thrillers, Short Stories in Spanish for Beginners will make learning Spanish easy and enjoyable.
PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying reference material will be available in your Library section along with the audio on our desktop site.
Critic reviews
"Olly's top-notch language-learning insights are right in line with the best of what we know from neuroscience and cognitive psychology about how to learn effectively. I love his work - and you will too!" (Barbara Oakley, PhD, author of New York Times best seller A Mind for Numbers)
What listeners say about Short Stories in Spanish for Beginners
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall2 out of 5 stars
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Performance2 out of 5 stars
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Story2 out of 5 stars
- Mr Chops
- 28-06-20
fourth out of six books tried
Short stories for beginners
I was frustrated by all the paid for 5 star reviews for these books so decided to do my own comparison. Here are the results:
6 audio books compared and ranked by ease of understanding for a beginner with only a few words of Spanish
1. Claudia Orea 4 stars
The best of the six I tried. Has verbal translations although oddly these are presented from track 14 onwards after you have listened to the whole thing in just Spanish. Would be better to have the translation next to each story.
2. Alicia Garcia 3 stars
written Translation via pdf, no verbal translation. More interesting stories than learning revolution though
3. Learning Revolution - 2/3 stars
Has some vocabulary verbally translated although the Spanish accented English is hard to follow. Stories pretty boring (e.g. working as an accountant). Hard to follow for a beginner
4. Olly Richards 2 stars
No translation, slightly more interesting stories than learning revolution though
Lingo Mastery. Hard to follow for a beginner.
5. Touri Language Learning 1 star
Lots of sales pitches for their courses. No translation. Hard to follow.
6. Francisco Ruiz 1 star
All of these books were initially published as physical books. They are designed to be read, rather than listened to as audio books. To convert them into audio a Spanish speaker reads the text and a pdf has been added. This doesn’t really work for learning via audio. As a beginner you need more side by translation of the audio, at least initially until a few key phrases have been properly learnt.
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18 people found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- M. Hellen
- 20-08-20
Really enjoyable stories
This is the best audiobook of short stories I have come across so far. The stories are actually really interesting and fun and had me gripped (except one that I had trouble understanding, but I was listening whilst doing things and I really should have looked up a word that kept cropping up! I probably wasn't concentrating enough anyway tbh). There is a wide selection of subjects to the stories - historial, sci-fi, supernatural etc - but they each kept my interest up throughout. I was actually disappointed when I got to the end! The narration was very clear so all words could be made out and the language used was just right for my standard (not beginner). I doubt these would work for complete beginners, but I have been learning for 5 months quite intensively and these were perfect. I have bought one of Olly Richards' intermediate books and will be looking for anything he does now. Audible is such a minefield of fake reviews that it is hard to find decent material so I hope this review will be helpful.
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4 people found this helpful
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- Mister Peridot
- 01-05-21
Recommended
This is a collection of quite interesting stories that ring true and introduce a good deal of vocabulary. They are not that easy though. I found it necessary to study the corresponding text in printed form for some time before listening to the audio. And this required much use of a dictionary as the dictionary included in the back of the book is far from adequate. But that gripe apart these are good stories for a student to work on as long as you understand that as a beginner you have no chanceof understanding these stories at an initial hearing.
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2 people found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Alice Sowerby
- 22-01-23
Good comprehension practice for intermediates
I got this audio book after completing the Paul Noble beginners audio course. My level of understanding was not good enough to properly follow the story. I then took the Paul Noble intermediate audio course. I was then able to understand enough of the story to use it as a godless comprehension practice and learn some new vocabulary. The accompanying pdf has story summaries and questions in Spanish which I used to practice reading aloud and work on my accent.
The stories are a bit silly but I found them funny and entertaining. The narration is clear and being able to slow it down helps. Listening to the stories many times over helps to improve comprehension.
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story3 out of 5 stars
- Ms V Fairless
- 17-01-22
Errors
I have the book and audiobook. There are differences, however, the first audiobook story has errors...Daniel takes a bus and falls asleep and awakes in Barcelona, and the rest of the story then doesn't make sense as the book version he awakes Valencia, which makes far more sense of saying that he is far away from Barcelona.
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall3 out of 5 stars
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Performance3 out of 5 stars
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Story2 out of 5 stars
- Adrian P
- 16-07-22
Good learning material, not much else
Olly's Short Stories in Spanish are good as far as learning material for beginner Spanish learners is concerned but it offers very little in terms of storytelling and narration. The stories are extremely silly and the narration mediocre, with a monotonous speech all the way through the book.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Eoin Maher
- 11-01-21
Excellent way to learn and improve
Very good. Enjoyed it a lot, although I suggest speading it up to about x 1.45 to better train your ear.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- miss j c willmore
- 10-11-20
Enjoyed and learnt
really enjoyed, listened a couple of times to some for greater understanding and acquired new words and phrases.
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Overall1 out of 5 stars
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Performance2 out of 5 stars
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Story1 out of 5 stars
- Dustin Graves
- 07-04-23
Can return the book.?
Extremely dissatisfied with the book's caliber. The majority of the pages in this book are stuck together, so if I want to utilize it, I must physically separate each page.
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14 people found this helpful
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Overall1 out of 5 stars
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Performance1 out of 5 stars
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Story1 out of 5 stars
- Jaden Nichols
- 07-04-23
Nope!!
The fact that there is no practical method to verify your responses to the questions at the conclusion of each segment is a major drawback. really depressing
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14 people found this helpful
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Overall1 out of 5 stars
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Performance1 out of 5 stars
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Story1 out of 5 stars
- Luciana Hamilton
- 07-04-23
Bother me
I was the reviewer. I'm almost halfway through, and the book is making me hate it even more. The jargon is basically thrown at you. EVERYTHING AT ONCE is much too much.
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13 people found this helpful
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Overall1 out of 5 stars
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Performance1 out of 5 stars
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Story1 out of 5 stars
- Arturo Holloway
- 07-04-23
Didn’t work for me
The quality of this book has left me feeling really let down. There are wrong answers. I'm going to try another
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11 people found this helpful
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- M A Young
- 24-04-21
Great for Intermediate Students
I've studied Spanish off and on for years and although I can speak fairly well, my difficulty is comprehension when someone speaks quickly. The narrator in these stories speaks at a quick enough pace that it doesn't seem unnatural, but clearly and slowly enough for me to understand 95% of what is being said. The included PDF of vocabulary is also extremely helpful. It will be too slow for advanced or native speakers, but for intermediates it is excellent listening practice.
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10 people found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Romance and Nonfiction Reader
- 25-01-22
good for A2 above. Listened multiple times.
listened to it multiple times. Very useful for new Spanish learners. when I listened to it as A1 it was confusing. I read the pdf and then listened to the audio, then I understood the context. Less pressure when there's no expectations to learn every new words. I went one context at a time.
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5 people found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Luisa Fowler
- 05-01-21
Great book for Spanish learners
Loved the narration because it's helpful for audio input. I enjoyed the stories. I read the book while listening to the audio.
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5 people found this helpful
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- Anonymous User
- 14-04-23
Great way to learn Spanish
Listening to this book was a more natural way to learn Spanish than apps or other methods. It deserves close to five stars in all categories.
However, it didn’t include audio chapter summaries and comprehension questions as Richards has included in other language versions of this book (requiring learners to refer to the included PDF for those features).
Also, be aware that this narration and grammar seem to lean towards European grammar and pronunciation.
The verb tense also sometimes changes multiple times in a passage, which seems a little unnatural and can disorient a learner who is not familiar with Spanish verb tenses and conjugations.
The narrator also does not differentiate his character as much as narrators in other Richards audiobooks, requiring the learner to concentrate more closely.
This is still a great language-learning audiobook, and I recommend getting it. If you are new to Spanish and don’t have exposure to the vocabulary from previous education, I recommend buying the e-book or paperback to read along with on a second listening so that you can identify specific words. I also recommend watching Richards’s YouTube videos on storylearning, so that you can make the most of his books.
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2 people found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- jennifer M. Thorpe
- 05-12-22
love it
this is a very good opportunity to to just listen and pick up what you can, to hear the language in use.
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- M T
- 04-10-23
Better than Expected
The book does a good job of staying just above beginner level, using limited vocabulary with frequent repetition. But what made it better was that the plots of the stories were so engaging given the limitations of length and vocabulary. I imagine this kind of material is hard to write and he has done a very good job on all of the stories. The narration is clear and well paced also. I was really happy with this purchase.
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