Language through Literature

La abeja haragana — The Lazy Bee


Horacio Quiroga, 1918 · 2032 words in Spanish · from Cuentos de la selva

How long «La abeja haragana» is, and how hard

Length in Spanish 2032 running words · 177 sentences · about 8 printed pages
Time to read about 18 minutes at a learner's pace, with the glosses to hand
Different words 470 dictionary words, averaging 11.5 words a sentence
Words glossed 470 of 470 — every one that appears in the tale
Words that appear once 252 — 54%. A word met once is a word you will not learn from this text alone
Where it stands 5 of 8 by length in the Spanish room

369 of this tale's own 470 words, most frequent first, carry 95% of it; 143 carry 80%. That is the honest answer to «can I read this yet»: hold those and the reading is close work rather than decoding.

Its chapters

The room reads «La abeja haragana» in 6 scenes. The headings are the house's own; the sentence counts are the tale's.

SceneIn SpanishSentences
The Lazy Bee La abeja haragana 31
The Closed Door La puerta cerrada 35
The Snake La culebra 28
The Spinning-Top Trial La prueba del trompito 36
To Vanish Desaparecer 30
The Long Night La noche larga 17

How it begins

Había una vez en una colmena una abeja que no quería trabajar.

There was once in a hive a bee who would not work.

That first sentence is the free sample, and the only one on this page. «La abeja haragana» is part of the library — the eight Spanish tales, the eight German ones and the Russian shelf, every word glossed, sentence-by-sentence English — for €5 a month or €39 a year, cancel whenever you like, one subscription for all three rooms. What the library costs. «Las medias de los flamencos» is free, entire, if you would rather read the room before you buy it, and the opening scene of «La tortuga gigante» after it.

Shorter and longer in the same room

La gama ciega — 1870 wordsEl loro pelado — 1882 words Historia de dos cachorros de coatí y de dos cachorros de hombre — 2286 wordsLa guerra de los yacarés — 3017 words

All eight tales of Cuentos de la selva · Horacio Quiroga · the shelf, counted