Language through Literature

Historia de dos cachorros de coatí y de dos cachorros de hombre — The Story of Two Coati Cubs and Two Human Children


Horacio Quiroga, 1918 · 2286 words in Spanish · from Cuentos de la selva

How long «Historia de dos cachorros de coatí y de dos cachorros de hombre» is, and how hard

Length in Spanish 2286 running words · 141 sentences · about 9 printed pages
Time to read about 21 minutes at a learner's pace, with the glosses to hand
Different words 503 dictionary words, averaging 16.2 words a sentence
Words glossed 503 of 503 — every one that appears in the tale
Words that appear once 252 — 50%. A word met once is a word you will not learn from this text alone
Where it stands 6 of 8 by length in the Spanish room

389 of this tale's own 503 words, most frequent first, carry 95% of it; 156 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 «Historia de dos cachorros de coatí y de dos cachorros de hombre» in 5 scenes. The headings are the house's own; the sentence counts are the tale's.

SceneIn SpanishSentences
The Mother’s Lesson La lección de la madre 24
The Trap La trampa 23
The Cage La jaula 31
Seventeen Diez y siete 38
The Snake La víbora 25

How it begins

Había una vez una coatí que tenía tres hijos.

There was once a coati who had three children.

That first sentence is the free sample, and the only one on this page. «Historia de dos cachorros de coatí y de dos cachorros de hombre» 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

El loro pelado — 1882 wordsLa abeja haragana — 2032 words La guerra de los yacarés — 3017 wordsEl paso del Yabebirí — 3348 words

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