Learn Spanish With Bilingual Stories Tah dah!
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UPDATE: Mary Shelley's Frankenstein now available as a free online Spanish-English line under line bilingual book
NEWS FLASH: Galarias Velvet is now availible on Netflix (at least in the uk) This is a very stylish, high quality spanish language series based on the ups and downs of a Madrid fashion house in the 20's (don't quote me on the time period, took a guess from the clothes and cars) and the turmoil caused by a love affair between a newely initiated boss and one of the lowely staff. I made it sound dull didn't I. It's not. Think Downton Abbey meets Cristion Dior.
Anyways, the important thing is, you can switch on the Spanish subtitles, which work really well on Netflix (just so readable!) Keep your dictionary to the side of you and just occasionaly pause to look up an unknown word. Don't do this too often as it will spoil the experience. It's better you watch it and not understand half of it than feeling like it's too much effort and not watching it at all. Also, try and avoid watching it with the English subtitles switched on; all you'll do is habitually read them and switch off your ears after the first 5 minutes, a completely pointless exercise. If you not sure whether it's your thing, watch the trailer below and witness the quality of the production
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Me senté en su butaca y me calenté las manos en la chimenea, pues estaba cayendo una buena helada y los cristales estaban cubiertos de placas de hielo.
.................. ~Me senté = PRETERITO 1st pers sing - sentarse [to sit down/ to settle down/ to sit] THINK: TO SEAT ONESELF ie 'myself (I)seated' ~Butaca = [armchair/ seat ticket i.a.] ~Cayendo = [falling] GERUNDIO - caer [to fall] ~Helada = [frost/ cold/ freezing] ~Placas = [plaques/ plates/ sheets] i.e. 'sheets of ice' |
I seated myself in his armchair and warmed my hands before his crackling fire, for a sharp frost had set in, and the windows were thick with the ice crystals.
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Pretty cool eh? Except it's taking me hundreds of hours to do it! The four languages that I've aligned (paragraph by paragraph in four side by side columns) are: English, French, Spanish and German. So far I've finished aligning two short stories from the adventures of Sherlock Holmes and I'm half way through a third one. Use the links below to get to them. They will open new tabs in you browser as these parallel texts are contained on my French site. Don't worry, they are not pop ups (does this look like a porn site? Really?)
ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE
The Red-headed League
[La liga de los Pelirrojos]
A Sherlock Holmes Adventure.
ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE
The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle
[El Carbunclo Azul]
A Sherlock Holmes Adventure.
ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE
The Adventure of the Speckled Band
[La Banda de Lunares]
A Sherlock Holmes Adventure.
The Red-headed League
[La liga de los Pelirrojos]
A Sherlock Holmes Adventure.
ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE
The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle
[El Carbunclo Azul]
A Sherlock Holmes Adventure.
ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE
The Adventure of the Speckled Band
[La Banda de Lunares]
A Sherlock Holmes Adventure.
Hi, welcome to my site. This is YOUR AVATAR. As you progress in Spanish your avatar will do... well... not very much.
Still, the rest of my site's actually quite good so please use to heart's content.
Still, the rest of my site's actually quite good so please use to heart's content.
Useful Links for Free Online Bilingual Literature (Spanish English)
I've found a new source of free parallel texts: MY OWN! This link will take you to my menu page of free parallel texts I've created. You will see that they are not of the vanilla variety as for the most part they come either with grammar annotations or colour matched lines (helps referring between languages.) There are not so many but it's the quality that counts, not the quantity.
I just got owned. But like the good stiff-lipped Brit that I am, I shall do nothing but bow down to a superior effort whilst muttering, without even the slightest of bitterness lacing my words, "Good game."
I sincerely urge you to try the link given above to Miguel Garci-Gomez's site from Duke University's Trinity College, without which you'll never find this diamond of a site buried under the 12 feet of muck that I like to call Googleland. Let's talk straight, this is a site containing literature in the form of well aligned parallel texts. The ones you are interested in are the Spanish-English ones (of which there are plenty). The link above will take you to the menu page.
NOTE: The text size is a tad on the small side. However, if you are using google chrome then use this hint/tip; go to the box in the top right of this browser (the one with the three horizontal lines in it) and click on it to trigger the drop down menu. About half way down this menu is a plus and minus sign either side of a base figure of 100%. Now, click on the plus sign until this figure hits 125% and this will increase the text size for this site to a comfortable reading level (on normal laptops).
NOTE: There should be a similar device with other web browsers.
NOTE: This also works for my site!
I sincerely urge you to try the link given above to Miguel Garci-Gomez's site from Duke University's Trinity College, without which you'll never find this diamond of a site buried under the 12 feet of muck that I like to call Googleland. Let's talk straight, this is a site containing literature in the form of well aligned parallel texts. The ones you are interested in are the Spanish-English ones (of which there are plenty). The link above will take you to the menu page.
NOTE: The text size is a tad on the small side. However, if you are using google chrome then use this hint/tip; go to the box in the top right of this browser (the one with the three horizontal lines in it) and click on it to trigger the drop down menu. About half way down this menu is a plus and minus sign either side of a base figure of 100%. Now, click on the plus sign until this figure hits 125% and this will increase the text size for this site to a comfortable reading level (on normal laptops).
NOTE: There should be a similar device with other web browsers.
NOTE: This also works for my site!
If the above site didn't exist then, for free online Spanish-English parallel texts, Farkas's site would have been THE place to go. As it stands, it is still worth a visit as there are bilingual novels here that are not available in Miguel's. Below is a linked list of what are, in my probably not so humble opinion, the top three (does three count as a list?) of Farkas's Spanish-English bilingual novels bearing in mind suitability for learning Spanish.
Two things: ONE: Yep, that was a diabolically constructed sentence and: TWO: Yep, I know, not one of these bilingual texts are from a Spanish author but I think Miguel has cornered that niche, don't you think?)
NOTE: You may be able to download these parallel texts for your e-reader. I couldn't tell you for certain: I followed the instructions but failed completely.
Two things: ONE: Yep, that was a diabolically constructed sentence and: TWO: Yep, I know, not one of these bilingual texts are from a Spanish author but I think Miguel has cornered that niche, don't you think?)
- The Hound of the Baskervilles by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
- The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka (original title: Die verwandlung)
- Journey to the Centre of the Earth by Jules Verne
NOTE: You may be able to download these parallel texts for your e-reader. I couldn't tell you for certain: I followed the instructions but failed completely.
Want to print off some pre-made parallel texts in word/ excel/ html format. This is the one for you. NOTE: for this one you have to download files found after scrolling three quarters of the way down the linked page and then unzip them. I can't guarantee that they are free of nasties but I have done it for the Spanish French and German files and so far my laptop hasn't exploded. NOTE: There are lots of aligned texts in each file: however, quite a number of them contravene copyright laws. I shall leave the moral/legal decision to you as to whether you read them. I personally didn't know they contained such texts before unzipping them. Which ones are a bit dodgy? Well, the age of the original text is a good guide. If in doubt, search for the original text on the internet. If it seems freely available then it has probably gone past the author's rights date in the US, which seems to be becoming the watershed mark for internet texts. WARNING: just because the original text is free of rights, that doesn't necessarily mean the same for the translation which could have been done much later.
THIS COULD BE ONE OF THE BEST LANGUAGE LEARNING TOOLS ON THE WEB. (But not yet!) (and it's freeeee!)
This site is fairly new: It puts free classic literature on line in their original language. Nothing new in that? Well, it then allows users to make annotations (grammar notes, translations, interesting comments.. etc) It does this in such a way that all one needs to do is scroll through the text; words highlighted correspond to annotations automatically appearing to the right. At the moment this aids only very accomplished language learners but if they add a parallel text in the target language then the whole thing could become VERY USEFUL to all stages of learning.
This site is fairly new: It puts free classic literature on line in their original language. Nothing new in that? Well, it then allows users to make annotations (grammar notes, translations, interesting comments.. etc) It does this in such a way that all one needs to do is scroll through the text; words highlighted correspond to annotations automatically appearing to the right. At the moment this aids only very accomplished language learners but if they add a parallel text in the target language then the whole thing could become VERY USEFUL to all stages of learning.
This is another new site for bilingual texts and is very interesting indeed. As far as I can tell it is free, so that's a good start. So what does it do? It puts literature online in such a way that one can choose a pair of languages from a fairly wide group and see the chosen text appear as a parallel text in the opted languages. It then relies on user imput to align the paragraphs.
First thing to know; being new there are not many bilingual texts with actual aligned paragraphs. I did not really take the time to look but with the first three stories that I looked at none of the paragraphs were alligned.
Second thing to know: Once signed in and in editor mode, alligning the paragraphs is simple, quick and intuitive. I gave it a try with the English French version of A.C.Doyle's the Blue Carbuncle and it probably took me 3 to four minutes to roughly align a third of the story - less time than it would take to read the said third in just one language as I was simply looking for keywords and proof reading where in doubt. Essentially you pick and drop the paragraphs and you dont have to do each one: just one every three or four where texts start to separate. Of course, this made me cry as I makes my parallel texts using copy and paste which takes twenty times more time.
Third thing to know: you don't need to be that fluent to align a text and if you are stuck you can copy and paste a word into an online dual language dictionary kept open in another window. Why do this: you will learn much quicker by aligning a parallel text than simply reading a well aligned parallel text.
As far as dual language dictionaries are concerned I like to use wordreference and linguee as they are fast and reliable.
Last Comment: If ever Tailored Texts and Weblitera join forces than I can't see the point in carrying on with what I'm doing at the moment.
First thing to know; being new there are not many bilingual texts with actual aligned paragraphs. I did not really take the time to look but with the first three stories that I looked at none of the paragraphs were alligned.
Second thing to know: Once signed in and in editor mode, alligning the paragraphs is simple, quick and intuitive. I gave it a try with the English French version of A.C.Doyle's the Blue Carbuncle and it probably took me 3 to four minutes to roughly align a third of the story - less time than it would take to read the said third in just one language as I was simply looking for keywords and proof reading where in doubt. Essentially you pick and drop the paragraphs and you dont have to do each one: just one every three or four where texts start to separate. Of course, this made me cry as I makes my parallel texts using copy and paste which takes twenty times more time.
Third thing to know: you don't need to be that fluent to align a text and if you are stuck you can copy and paste a word into an online dual language dictionary kept open in another window. Why do this: you will learn much quicker by aligning a parallel text than simply reading a well aligned parallel text.
As far as dual language dictionaries are concerned I like to use wordreference and linguee as they are fast and reliable.
Last Comment: If ever Tailored Texts and Weblitera join forces than I can't see the point in carrying on with what I'm doing at the moment.
Just recently discovered this site and wow, what a collection of bilingual texts it has. (Poems and very short stories mostly it seems) This link should take you directly to the menu for these texts. It does spanish/english, french/english and french/spanish. The collections seems to be free and formed of classic literature which has gone past the date of the authors rights. I'm certainly going to take a look myself!
Also, seems to have audio for the texts as well. Hoorah!
UPDATE: I have used it a little bit now and the paragraphs are all well aligned but avoid poetry which is too abstract and concentrate on the very short stories which contain a simple narrative.
Personal request: Pleeeese separate the audio into paragraphs and put the said fragments under each corrosponding paragraph. At least like that you can read one paragraph and then listen to the audio for it while it is fresh in the mind. Otherwise you end up reading the entire story/poem and then you play the audio, almost getting to the end of the introduction of said audio: and then you fall asleep!!!
NOTE: the lady who reads the texts in Spanish does it at a very reasonable speed (very relaxing with the music behind it and that) and it is all good quality stuff but her introductions are just way too long. You end up trying to guess skip to the real start of the audio but hey, it's free and there is not much like it elsewhere so what's to grumble.
Also, seems to have audio for the texts as well. Hoorah!
UPDATE: I have used it a little bit now and the paragraphs are all well aligned but avoid poetry which is too abstract and concentrate on the very short stories which contain a simple narrative.
Personal request: Pleeeese separate the audio into paragraphs and put the said fragments under each corrosponding paragraph. At least like that you can read one paragraph and then listen to the audio for it while it is fresh in the mind. Otherwise you end up reading the entire story/poem and then you play the audio, almost getting to the end of the introduction of said audio: and then you fall asleep!!!
NOTE: the lady who reads the texts in Spanish does it at a very reasonable speed (very relaxing with the music behind it and that) and it is all good quality stuff but her introductions are just way too long. You end up trying to guess skip to the real start of the audio but hey, it's free and there is not much like it elsewhere so what's to grumble.
I found another free parallel text website which is in many ways similar to Weblitera in that it does its texts chapter by chapter (which helps when you are studying them, believe me) but has the simplicity of the menu system of Farkastranslations (weblitera's is awful.) There are only 4 stories on there so far but they are good ones (including the Metamorphosis and the Hound of the Baskervilles) and I imagine there will be more on the way. Occasionally there is (kind of) audio available, but there is no way to change the text size and style like with Weblitera. In summary: one to watch.
NOTE: this link will take you specifically to Jesse and Joy's Corre music video on Readlang. For others, press the R in the top left hand corner, then press library in the menu bar, then public texts in the second menu bar, and tick songs in the the third bar. All that remains is to scroll down and choose a song. Simple as.
The more I look into Readlang the more I like it. What I want to show you is my favorite bit of it: the music videos with the karaoke words scrolling underneath. What's great about that? Well, if you click on any word it will tell you it's meaning (well, most of the time) and this gave me reason enough (tenuous though it may be) to stick it in my linked list of free parallel texts.
The thing is, it works really well. You don't have to stop the music video if you come across a word that you don't know as pop songs tend to have enough natural pauses and repetition to give you the time to click on the said word and read the translation without losing your place too much. But even if you do, to help you out, there is a dual function to this system which I find flippin fantastic: By changing from the translation to the play function (tabs to the topish left in the kareoke player bit) you can make the video start on the word you press on. This is... well.. like I said: flippin fantastic for language learners.
Critique: There is one draw back: It is only accurate only about 75% of the time.
You see, if every word had it's exact equivalent in another language than bilingual dictionaries would be very slim things indeed. In fact, this is far from the case, giving rise to all sorts of Venn Diagram situations. (the ones with the overlapping circles you fool - NOTE: I belong to the 'always insult your reader' school of thought: just because it's more fun)
To get to the point, Readlang struggles where words have multiple meanings. It is forced to choose just one and there are times that the choice is unsuitable for the context (computer says no!). Readlang also struggles with some of the more complicated verb conjugations as well as reflexive verbs. It also can have difficulty with expressions but the click and drag thing (i.e to translate more than one word together as a whole) helps ease that.
Last note: don't let these small complaints stop you from using this powerful free tool. It really is the bees knees.
My Selection of Some Good Ones on the Readlang Music Lyric Thing
Jesse & Joy - Corre
Juanes - Nada Valgo Sin Tu Amor
Juanes - A Dios Les Pido
Shakira - Las de la Intuicion
Pablo Alboran - Por Fin
Natalia Jimenez - Creo En Mi
Jabare de Pelo - Completa Incompleto
K & K - Spanish Call Me Baby (WTF?)
K & K - Spanish Wrecking Ball (WTF? x2)
Calle 13 - Muerte en Hawaii
Julieta Venegas - Limon y Sal
Heisenberg song from Breaking Bad
This is all I could come up with before the constant scrolling of the menu system did my nut in. Please solve this Mr Readlang (I know you'll be checking your backlinks!)
The more I look into Readlang the more I like it. What I want to show you is my favorite bit of it: the music videos with the karaoke words scrolling underneath. What's great about that? Well, if you click on any word it will tell you it's meaning (well, most of the time) and this gave me reason enough (tenuous though it may be) to stick it in my linked list of free parallel texts.
The thing is, it works really well. You don't have to stop the music video if you come across a word that you don't know as pop songs tend to have enough natural pauses and repetition to give you the time to click on the said word and read the translation without losing your place too much. But even if you do, to help you out, there is a dual function to this system which I find flippin fantastic: By changing from the translation to the play function (tabs to the topish left in the kareoke player bit) you can make the video start on the word you press on. This is... well.. like I said: flippin fantastic for language learners.
Critique: There is one draw back: It is only accurate only about 75% of the time.
You see, if every word had it's exact equivalent in another language than bilingual dictionaries would be very slim things indeed. In fact, this is far from the case, giving rise to all sorts of Venn Diagram situations. (the ones with the overlapping circles you fool - NOTE: I belong to the 'always insult your reader' school of thought: just because it's more fun)
To get to the point, Readlang struggles where words have multiple meanings. It is forced to choose just one and there are times that the choice is unsuitable for the context (computer says no!). Readlang also struggles with some of the more complicated verb conjugations as well as reflexive verbs. It also can have difficulty with expressions but the click and drag thing (i.e to translate more than one word together as a whole) helps ease that.
Last note: don't let these small complaints stop you from using this powerful free tool. It really is the bees knees.
My Selection of Some Good Ones on the Readlang Music Lyric Thing
Jesse & Joy - Corre
Juanes - Nada Valgo Sin Tu Amor
Juanes - A Dios Les Pido
Shakira - Las de la Intuicion
Pablo Alboran - Por Fin
Natalia Jimenez - Creo En Mi
Jabare de Pelo - Completa Incompleto
K & K - Spanish Call Me Baby (WTF?)
K & K - Spanish Wrecking Ball (WTF? x2)
Calle 13 - Muerte en Hawaii
Julieta Venegas - Limon y Sal
Heisenberg song from Breaking Bad
This is all I could come up with before the constant scrolling of the menu system did my nut in. Please solve this Mr Readlang (I know you'll be checking your backlinks!)
Nice little site, if a little rough around the edges (Ha! look who's talking!), that has a handfull of nicely alligned Spanish-English parallel texts. Two texts caught my eye: Dracula by Bram stoker (damn, I wanted to do that one, though I'm now trying to stick to short stories myself) and Oscar Wilde's Portrait of Dorian Grey.
NOTE: that they've completed neither, but just use what's there and stop grumbling: it's free remember.
NOTE: that they've completed neither, but just use what's there and stop grumbling: it's free remember.
This one is absolutely new to me but could be a gem. Why? The stories are short, simple and don't date from the 19th Century. This makes them about as rare as rocking horse poo. Will look into this a bit more and come back to you. By the way, I've linked you to the menu where you can choose from a list of six.
Great site if you want to learn many languages for free using bilingual stories. It uses about eight specifically written very basic short stories which get put side by side with the same stories written in many different languages. Being intentionally basic, don't expect a thrilling adventure but that's not the point really.
This is my sister site for learning french with stories. Because my french is better than my Spanish this site is, as a consequence, more developed.
Ok, I lied, it's not exactly free but for what they give, their prices are very reasonable. So, what do they sell? Electronic books of classical literature (in other words, free from author's rights) in the original language readable on pc, ipad, kindle... etc. Not excited yet? Patience dear friends. The 'kicker' is that if you get stuck in the target language you can pass your pointer (or finger) over the problematic sentence and you will see, popping up as if by magic, the translation in English. (an official translation to boot) How does this help? Well, if your problem with bilingual texts is that you end up just reading the side in your own language than this site is for you as your native language translations only appear in little segments after the willful physical interaction by you. YOUR EYES WONT BE WANDERING ALL BY THEMSELVES AS IF POSSESSED!
Try out the free examples to see what I mean. Prices range from 2 - 10 euros.
Try out the free examples to see what I mean. Prices range from 2 - 10 euros.
I just got my arse whipped. Not literally, but figuratively of course. EBBI books, another recent discovery, is what I consider to be the holy grail of parallel text makers. It's like Doppletext but much better. First of all, the choice of literature is much more interesting, and, more importantly, much more suited to language learning. Second of all, It's got really good quality audio that reads along with the text as the said text is highlighted. In fact, you can click on a sentence and it will instantly play the audio for it. This is utterly useful as regards the stop start fashion of reading texts whilst language learning. Thirdly, you can choose to read in normal parallel mode, where one by one the matching parallel sentences are highlighted alongside the audio, or you can read it in a mode similar to doppletext's system (see above). Anyways, with either mode (and this is the real kicker) you can click on any word to find a Wordreference definition without leaving the page; it's integrated with the e-book and done in such a fashion that it doesn't interrupt the reading experience.
Sole problem is, outside the freebie samples of parts of their e-books given on the page I've linked to, you have to pay (prices ranging from 3 - 9 euro's.) But if you are serious about language learning, than buying and using a couple of the parallel texts from these guys would be a very wise move. In anycase, use the free samples that are there and treat the snippets given as mini lessons. It'll be worth you time, believe me.
Sole problem is, outside the freebie samples of parts of their e-books given on the page I've linked to, you have to pay (prices ranging from 3 - 9 euro's.) But if you are serious about language learning, than buying and using a couple of the parallel texts from these guys would be a very wise move. In anycase, use the free samples that are there and treat the snippets given as mini lessons. It'll be worth you time, believe me.
AND
THIS IS WHAT I WROTE BEFORE I NEW THAT E-READERS COULD DO EXACTLY WHAT I WAS DESCRIBING:
It would be great if someone could invent a kindle with a good quality french-english dictionary installed (or whichever the languages you need) in such a way that you could read a book on it in the target language and, if you get stuck on a word, you can simply tap on it to get a pop up of the full dictionary definition/translation (or verb conjugation.) The person who invents that will make millions! (I so want my cut if you get the idea from reading this.)
THIS IS WHAT I THOUGHT TO MYSELF WHEN I FOUND OUT THAT THEY ACTUALLY HAD THIS FUNCTIONALITY:
Ar*e! I look like a tit now.
But let's get back on track: with ebook readers you can make use of all the free French literature available at sites like Project Guttenburg and Feedbooks (the latter is much easier to navigate). Although technically they are not bilingual stories, the dictionary functionality that I described above makes them a good alternative. I've now got a Kobo but from what I hear the Kindle is a better alternative because you can add the bilingual dictionary you want (the bilingual dictionaries on kobo are very basic and unfortunately obligatory: you can't change them for better ones. With kindle, you can buy and install the bilingual dictionary you want!
NOTE: for a good explanation of how it all works watch this video
Last of all I will add the Readlang free google chrome extension letting you do pretty much the same as what I've described above with ebook readers, but with online literature (or any internet writings for that matter) See my ditto on the matter for a link and more details (top left of the page if you skipped over it) (btw: how dare you skip stuff on my web page. Go! just go! Don't even turn around!)
It would be great if someone could invent a kindle with a good quality french-english dictionary installed (or whichever the languages you need) in such a way that you could read a book on it in the target language and, if you get stuck on a word, you can simply tap on it to get a pop up of the full dictionary definition/translation (or verb conjugation.) The person who invents that will make millions! (I so want my cut if you get the idea from reading this.)
THIS IS WHAT I THOUGHT TO MYSELF WHEN I FOUND OUT THAT THEY ACTUALLY HAD THIS FUNCTIONALITY:
Ar*e! I look like a tit now.
But let's get back on track: with ebook readers you can make use of all the free French literature available at sites like Project Guttenburg and Feedbooks (the latter is much easier to navigate). Although technically they are not bilingual stories, the dictionary functionality that I described above makes them a good alternative. I've now got a Kobo but from what I hear the Kindle is a better alternative because you can add the bilingual dictionary you want (the bilingual dictionaries on kobo are very basic and unfortunately obligatory: you can't change them for better ones. With kindle, you can buy and install the bilingual dictionary you want!
NOTE: for a good explanation of how it all works watch this video
Last of all I will add the Readlang free google chrome extension letting you do pretty much the same as what I've described above with ebook readers, but with online literature (or any internet writings for that matter) See my ditto on the matter for a link and more details (top left of the page if you skipped over it) (btw: how dare you skip stuff on my web page. Go! just go! Don't even turn around!)
This website is dedicated to Jade, Jacob, Oskar and Imogen who, I hope, will forgive me for continually forgetting their birthdays.
Signed Simpetweb: creating unequal web page columns and clashing couleur schemes since since 1824
Signed Simpetweb: creating unequal web page columns and clashing couleur schemes since since 1824