In this article, I’ve reviewed six best Spanish learning books for beginners that are easy to read on a beginner level.
Reading is an important aspect of language learning in every language.
In some ways, it is a better method to learn Spanish than listening or speaking. For example, reading exposes you to a new vocabulary that you wouldn’t encounter through a spoken language. The Spanish in books might be different from spoken Spanish.
Your visual memory will make a connection between the meaning of words with the written form. When the new words appear in the context it makes it easier to understand the meaning without even looking up the words in a dictionary.
Additionally, reading offers you some quiet time whereas speaking and listening will constantly require you to stay concentrated in order to be able to engage with the content.
The key to reading is to find a book that suits your taste.
Set yourself a goal to finish one book at a time. There is nothing as satisfying as the feeling of accomplishment when you turn the last page. You have done it! You’ve read a book in a new language.
In this article you will find information about:
In this article, I’ve reviewed six best Spanish learning books for beginners that are easy to read on a beginner level.
Reading is an essential aspect of language learning in every language.
In some ways, it is a better method to learn Spanish than listening or speaking. For example, reading exposes you to a new vocabulary that you wouldn’t encounter through a spoken language. The Spanish in books might be different from spoken Spanish.
Your visual memory will make a connection between the meaning of words with the written form. When the new words appear in the context, it makes it easier to understand the meaning without even looking up the words in a dictionary.
Additionally, reading offers you some quiet time, whereas speaking and listening will always require you to stay concentrated to be able to engage with the content.
The key to reading is to find a book that suits your taste.
Set yourself a goal to finish one book at a time. There is nothing as satisfying as the feeling of accomplishment when you turn the last page. You have done it! You’ve read a book in a new language.
In this article you will find information about:
- How to choose a Spanish book for learning
- Where to find Spanish Books Online
- The list of 5 Best Spanish learning books for beginners
How to choose a Spanish book for learning?
Find the genre that you like
It is essential to choose the book that you are genuinely interested in. There can be nothing worse than keep pushing yourself to read a book that you don’t like. It will only feel like torture. So it’s vital to choose a genre that you would enjoy and would be interested in keeping reading till the end.
Don’t choose a very long book.
It is easy to get too overwhelmed by a book that is too long. If you are not ready with books, you can even start with short stories in Spanish.
Find a book for your level in Spanish.
If you don’t understand 40% of what is written in the book, then there is a possibility that you will get tired of checking the dictionary at some point and give up.
If you understand 100%, it’s great to enjoy the book, but we are looking for something to improve the level of your Spanish, so we need something more complex. Target the book where you can understand 80% of the Spanish language. It is a good ratio that will help you to enrich your vocabulary.
Where to find Spanish books online
There are two best places to find some of the best Spanish learning books for beginners. It is, of course, Amazon.com, where you can find tons of best easy to read books in Spanish, and the second option is Bookdepository.com. This website has a wide variety of books to choose from, and it also offers free and fast delivery to many countries.
On both of the websites, you can search for books by the categories that you like. When you find a book, check for the preview available to understand whether this book is suitable for your level of Spanish.
Please note that I may earn a small commission for my endorsement, recommendation, testimonial, and/or link to any products or services from this website.
The List of 6 Best Spanish learning books for beginners
Here you can find the list of Spanish learning books for readers starting from beginner to pre-intermediate level, with a brief overview of each of them.
Conversational Spanish Dialogues by Lingo Mastery
Type: Spanish and English Dual-language book. Over 100 conversations and short stories collected in one book.
Length: 279 pages
The Plot: Each chapter is a new short dialogue between two people who wish to solve a common issue, which is related to everyday life. You will learn from these short stories how to set a meeting in Spanish, how to rent a car or tell a doctor that you don’t feel well.
What to expect: It is a good book for beginners to intermediate level. Very helpful with everyday conversations, great examples in Spanish and English. Great for practicing real-life Spanish.
Manolito Gafotas by Elvira Lindo
Type: Children’s book, adventures. Good book for beginners in Spanish.
Length: 190 pages
The Plot: A story about a ten-year-old kid Manolito that talks about his family, school and his friends. Each chapter is a short story of something that happened in his life, being bullied, his pranks or his girlfriend. His friends call him Four-Eyes, because of his extra two thick glasses.
Manolito is a cheerful child that tends to be involved in a greater than an average number of accidents. He doesn’t see his father very often but he spends a lot of time with his granddad that he loves very much.
He constantly ventures up and downtown, meeting famous personalities and even once participating in a demonstration. Everything that happens in his life looks dramatic and life-shaking for him.
He strongly feels that life is good and tends to tell everyone how adventures add flavors to every moment.
His chattering mouth causes him to end up at school psychologist once. When he started telling his life story to the psychologist with every little detail, the psychologist had to get rid of him!
What to expect: Even though it is a children’s book, it will also keep adults engaged and amused. You might find yourself laughing out loud as “Manolito ” described his life and adventures. It has some difficult vocabulary sometimes, so you will need the power to simply dismiss the fact that you do not understand every word. However, it feels like it’s possible to ignore some words in the descriptive part and still to understand the action part. If you quit the habit of checking each word in the dictionary the story will still explain itself. The Manolito Gafotas is quite a popular character in Spain. And if you’ve never met him, this is a great chance to do so.
“La Casa En Mango Street” by Sandra Cisneros
Type: Novel, written from a teenage girl perspective which makes the language easier to understand. A good book for beginners in Spanish.
Length: 110 pages
The Plot: The book is about Latina girl from Mexico, Esperanza Cordero, who is struggling with her life growing up on Mango Street in Chicago. The story is written by short vignettes.
Some heartwarming, some terrifying, these vignettes tell the story of a girl who is trying to discover who she is and how to live in the world around her. You will learn in this book what freedom means for Esperanza and what feeling oppressed is like.
What to expect: While the book may be aimed at a younger audience, it is still enjoyable by adults. The chapters can be read as stand-alone stories. The style and language are easy to read. This book has tones of great reviews on Amazon. Definitely, a must-read!
“El túnel” by Ernesto Sabato
Type: Psychological Thriller. Written for an adult audience.
Length: 160 pages
The plot: “El Tunel” is a psychological novel of obsessive love. The main hero is an artist named Juan Pablo Castel, who describes from a prison cell his murder of a woman named María Iribarne.
Obsessed from the moment he sees her examining his painting, Castel dreams for several months about how they will meet again. When they finally meet one day, the romantic relationship develops between the two that convince him of their mutual love. Castel’s paranoia growing day by day leads him to destroy the only thing that he really loves.
What to expect: a catchy story that will keep you hooked until the end of the book. Try not to use a dictionary too much letting the story flow. Constantly looking up the translations just kills the pace of a thriller.
“El Príncipe de la Niebla” by Carlos Ruiz Zafon
Type: mystery and Horror young adult novel. Great book for a person learning Spanish.
Length: 256 pages
The plot: The story is about a Carver family that moves from a capital city to a small coastal village during wartime. But as soon as they enter their new house strange things start to happen. The spirit of the previous owner’s son, who died by drowning, still lurks in this mysterious house.
What to expect: Even though Carlos Ruiz Zafon wrote the book for young adults, he still wrote in the introduction, that the book can be enjoyed by anyone from 8-80.
And you will find yourself so caught up in the story that you might even forget to look up words in a dictionary and just pick up meanings and grammar as you read.
However, if you are only starting to learn Spanish you need to understand that this is a classical Spanish book, and even though the book is targeting young adults the language might be a little bit complicated. But if you are up for a challenge and ready to move to an intermediate level of Spanish – do yourself a favor and get this wonderful book to learn from.
“La sombra del viento” by Carlos Ruiz Zafón
Type: Another great best seller in a mystery genre. Good for an intermediate level of Spanish.
Length: 487 pages
The Plot: It’s a story set in Barcelona in 1945, after the war, when a man takes his ten-year-old son Daniel to a library called the Cemetery of Forgotten Books. Daniel can choose only one book from the library and he picks up a book written by a man named Julian Carax. This book may be the last in existence by Carax. Someone has been finding the Carax works and destroying them!
What to expect:
This novel will perfectly suit those who love mystery and who would like to know more about after Civil War Spain. The book is very catchy and keeps you hooked till the end, however, it requires a basic knowledge of Spanish.
So, there you have it! Pick one or two books that you would like to start with and get the most out of it. Best of luck in your Spanis learning process and never stop reading!