Short Stories in Spanish for Intermediate Learners: Read for pleasure at your level, expand your vocabulary and learn Spanish the fun way! (Readers)

Reading is an important part of language learning, but it's difficult to find material at an appropriate level that is both interesting and contemporary. Too much of what is available for young adults / adults is based on arcane historical works or long descriptive pieces and you're never going to be able to use the language in any practical situation so it's hard to see why you'd want to spend time reading it. There are some notable exceptions; the Pepa Villa series of books and the Lola Lago, Detective series are both worth reading / listening to. The books by Paco Ardit are also worth considering, although the lack of audio and translations makes them of more limited use, in my view. To this short list comes Olly Richards, with his Spanish Short Stories series. I have read the two beginner-level books and now this intermediate level collection and I continue to be impressed. They are not great works of literature - they aren't meant to be - but they are extremely useful learning resources. They are specifically structured to help the reader to read and in doing so the author also helps the reader to learn more about the language and how it is used. Short chapters, summaries, questions to test understanding, contemporary language, vocabulary summaries, lots of speech and a controlled use of vocabulary that helps you to learn meaning from context - all of these features help take the reader forward. Olly understands what he is trying to achieve (he describes his approach in the introduction to the book), he understands how he wants you to use the book and he has designed the text to support that way of working. In doing so he has produced something that will benefit any language learner.

The book has interesting and fun stories, and it definitely improved my Spanish when I was reading it consistently. It has good vocabulary and common verb tenses too. Even though I am I can understand Spanish and I’m in intermediate level there are words that I still didn’t know, so that makes the book even better.

Good book - the concept is simple and affective. Appreciate the work that went into it. Arrived promptly too. I bought the physical copy & was hoping to get audio too, but in order to get it, you need to download the app. That’s ok, but then you need to buy the audio - not loving that but ok- but more importantly the app doesn’t really work. So definitely buy book, but don’t bother with app etc.

I have used this book with students that I teach who are at a B1 level and they find it perfect, challenging but not too difficult. The vocab and grammar used is the perfect level. I would not put this book at B1-B2. It is definitely more of a B1 level. I would say that some of the choices for the bold words are really really odd. Sometimes they highlight very simple A2 level vocab for the vocab list and miss out much harder expressions (those used with echar for example - which is a minefield for learners) Would love to see an “advanced level” book with more stories aimed at B2 level readers (what they might classify as B2-C1 I guess)

I absolutely LOVE this book. Sooo many short stories and they are so imaginative and really interesting. I am just loving it. At the end of one of the stories I said out loud 'oh no that cant be the end, did they get together or didnt they?' hahaha. It is making me want to read and I cant wait until I have a free moment in my day to read a bit more. I bought the kindle version so that I can sit at my table and read it on my laptop which I prefer. Thank you so much for this amazing book and I'm going to search what other books you have written.

This is the third book in the series and this one is aimed at B1-B2 standard, which is perfect for me. The stories are simple but interesting and the most important aspect is that the Spanish is graded, so it's at exactly the right level. It introduces new vocabulary in a structured manner and the grammar is also perfectly matched to the level. I love these books and this one is helping me to take my Spanish further. Recommend.

Recommend by out Spanish tutor, reasonable y easy to read and great to have the help

Interesting stories, great price and free online audio files available for every story to aid in pronunciation.

My son likes it

I found many mistakes in the book but it was still VERY MUCH WORTH IT. The stories were interesting and graded to my level appropriately, I seeming to increase in difficulty as the book went on. Would recommend.

Livro ótimo para aumentar mais o vocabulário e aumentar o nível de conhecimento incluindo estruturas gramaticais.

Love the stories - they are fun, but not t babyish at all. Good practice for vocabulary and reinforcing tenses. I also like to read aloud sometime s for speaking practice.

I love his books and the the person reading it.