Diego Velázquez, c. 1620 (public domain)
Free Spanish reading, level B2
Read the first picaresque novel in its original 16th-century Spanish
The short anonymous novel that invented an entire genre, in Golden Age Spanish.
Learn Spanish with this book for freeLazarillo de Tormes is short, but its 16th-century Spanish still carries archaic turns of phrase a modern course never covers. Lira keeps the original text unabridged, but every unfamiliar word is one tap away from a translation, and every word you look up gets scheduled for review so it actually sticks.
Key vocabulary from Vida de Lazarillo de Tormes
A preview of the words you'll run into early on, with pronunciation. Every one of them, and every other word you tap while reading, gets saved to your review deck automatically.
saber
to know
llamar
to call, name
el hijo
son
natural de
native of, originally from
la aldea
village
pues
well, so (discourse marker)
What actually happens while you read
One tap to translate
Click any unfamiliar word for its contextual translation, right inside the page. No dictionary tab, no losing your place in the story.
Every word saved with its sentence
The word you looked up keeps the exact sentence you found it in, not an isolated flashcard, so the meaning stays anchored to real context.
FSRS brings it back before you forget
Spaced repetition schedules each word's next review right before you'd naturally lose it, so vocabulary from this book actually stays with you.
Pues sepa V.M. ante todas cosas que a mí llaman Lázaro de Tormes, hijo de Tomé González y de Antona Pérez, de Tejares, de Salamanca.
TRANSLATION
village
CONTEXT
Pues sepa V.M. ante todas cosas que a mí llaman Lázaro de Tormes, hijo de Tomé González y de Antona Pérez, naturales de Tejares, aldea de Salamanca.
Start reading free →The science
Recognizing a word isn't the same as remembering it
According to Stephen Krashen's comprehensible input hypothesis, a language is acquired durably through exposure to content you mostly already understand, not through isolated word lists. Reading a real book supplies exactly that kind of exposure. Spaced repetition on top of it is what turns a word you translated once into one you actually remember weeks later.
Learning approach
Retention with Lira
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