Learn Spanish Reading Fairy Tales

This site is an account of my personal experiences with various Spanish acquisition resources and techniques that lie scattered all over the Internet in overwhelming numbers. In the last few posts we have discussed the effectiveness of some of the key immersion techniques that helped me with my Spanish. Today, we’ll elaborate on one of them with a twist. We already know how reading helps build our vocabulary but what to read is often the biggest dilemma someone learning Spanish often faces. This article explains where to find children’s books and fairy tales that are one’s best bets when it comes to learning any language.

Why fairy tales and fables?

Light to read, easy to absorb!
Photo credit: Jetske19 licensed CC BY-SA 2.0

While I have often talked about how reading Spanish comics, books, novels, or newspapers help create an inexpensive immersion environment for the learners, today I will discuss one of my favorite recommendations when it comes to reading as a rookie learner. What I am referring to are children’s materials, i.e., cartoon shows, short stories, anecdotes, fables, etc. Even better if the reading material is one of the graded classroom readers meant for elementary-school students.

One big reason why these materials are so effective for the uninitiated is the extremely lightweight texture and limited range of vocabulary. These graded readers require the learner to have a very basic knowledge of grammar and a limited vocabulary in order to be understood and enjoyed. They are quick and light to read, easy to understand, and fun to relate and provide one of the most enjoyable means of absorbing the bare essentials of Spanish. The Spanish absorbed this way is more often than not what’s required in day-to-day conversations and for basic survival in a Spanish-only ecosystem. In a nutshell, these readers are the zero-calorie meals of your Spanish diet-plan – light and easy to consume and quick to absorb!

Your world is filled with wonderful free resources

Fairytales are the easiest reads for new Spanish learners
Photo credit: GettysGirl4260 licensed CC BY-SA 2.0

So where can we find good-quality resources for children’s Spanish? Since I am a big fan of all things free, I would talk about only online resources. In case you are willing to spill some dough, you have everything you can imagine on sites like Amazon® and Flipkart® if not your local bookstore. In fact, Amazon would easily beat your neighborhood bookstore when it comes to variety and maybe even pricing. If you own a Kindle® (Amazon’s® e-book reader), things just couldn’t get any easier given the quick and effortless downloads and inexpensive titles.

Now coming back to free resources, there are quite a few hidden gems online that could satisfy the most discerning of readers. No matter how rapidly you devour, you can never run out of titles with such websites offering you countless options in portable document format (PDF). Depending on your preference, you could either print them off your computer and enjoy the feeling of reading off a real book, or you could just read them right off your tablet or computer screen if you are not too fussy about the screen’s glare. Personally, I prefer the idea of printing them because learning Spanish should be as stress-free as it gets and not having to expose my eyes to the computer screen’s radiation for extended periods of time is one less thing to worry about.

Best free online resources

ChildrensLibrary.org – I strongly urge all Spanish enthusiasts to check out this one and bookmark it without fail. With hundreds of digitized children’s books in Spanish available for you to devour for free, there couldn’t be a better treat for those who wish to just drown themselves in Spanish.

BookBox.com – This site is a visual delight for Spanish learners. Dozens of videos, animated versions of common children’s stories in several languages including Spanish can be found here. All videos come with subtitles to make viewing less stressful.

GrimmStories.com – This is where one can find plenty of fairy tales and fables written by brothers, Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, in English, Dutch, Danish, Italian, German, French, and Spanish. Needless to say, you need to select the first option in the list of languages if you are a Spanish learner.

No matter what you read, read often!
Photo credit: Harald Groven licensed CC BY-SA 2.0

AndersenStories.com – This one shares an uncanny resemblance to GrimStories.com in format and presentation with the only difference being that the writer on this site is Hans Christian Andersen.

Cody’s Cuentos – This is a podcast of classic childrens stories in Spanish along with transcripts. The stories are professionally recorded and read by native Spanish speakers. It’s a great way for students of Spanish at all levels to work on their reading and listening comprehension.

There are many more sources tucked away in the riches of the Internet still wanting to be discovered. While the sites listed above will more than quench your thirst for reading, you can surely scavenge the Web for richer or better resources and share your findings with our community here. No matter what you read, the trick is to read often and read regularly. Even if you find opening the dictionary way too often annoying, don’t give up. Given you stay consistent, you will soon notice a significant drop in the number of times you have to look up something in the dictionary for every story. It has worked for me and for many more all over the world who are learning Spanish on their own.