Cecilio Pla, 1899, Blanco y Negro (public domain)
Free Spanish reading, level B2-C1
Read Novelas Ejemplares, Cervantes' short stories, in the original Spanish
Cervantes' other masterpiece, twelve short stories instead of one long one, each short enough to actually finish.
Learn Spanish with this book for freeNovelas Ejemplares collects twelve short stories by Cervantes, each one a manageable size next to Don Quixote's doorstop length, but written in the same dense, ironic Golden Age Spanish. The opening story alone drops a sweeping, biting line about thieves within the first sentence. 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 Novelas Ejemplares
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.
el ladrón
thief
hurtar
to steal, pilfer
nacer
to be born
la gana
the urge, the desire
inseparable
inseparable
la muerte
death
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.
Parece que los jitanos y jitanas solamente nacieron en el mundo para ser : nacen de padres ladrones, críanse con ladrones, estudian para ladrones, y finalmente salen con ser ladrones corrientes y á todo ruedo; y la gana de y el hurtar son en ellos como accidentes inseparables que no se quitan sino con la muerte.
TRANSLATION
thieves
CONTEXT
Parece que los jitanos y jitanas solamente nacieron en el mundo para ser ladrones: nacen de padres ladrones, críanse con ladrones, estudian para ladrones, y finalmente salen con ser ladrones corrientes y molientes á todo ruedo; y la gana de hurtar y el hurtar son en ellos como accidentes inseparables que no se quitan sino con la muerte.
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
Start learning Spanish with Novelas Ejemplares today
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