Language through Literature

La gama ciega — The Blind Doe


Horacio Quiroga, 1918 · 1870 words in Spanish · from Cuentos de la selva

How long «La gama ciega» is, and how hard

Length in Spanish 1870 running words · 132 sentences · about 7 printed pages
Time to read about 17 minutes at a learner's pace, with the glosses to hand
Different words 452 dictionary words, averaging 14.2 words a sentence
Words glossed 452 of 452 — every one that appears in the tale
Words that appear once 246 — 54%. A word met once is a word you will not learn from this text alone
Where it stands 3 of 8 by length in the Spanish room

359 of this tale's own 452 words, most frequent first, carry 95% of it; 142 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 gama ciega» in 5 scenes. The headings are the house's own; the sentence counts are the tale's.

SceneIn SpanishSentences
The Deer’s Lord’s Prayer El padrenuestro de los venados 13
The Bees’ Nest El nido de abejas 34
The Anteater El oso hormiguero 35
The Hunter El cazador 25
The Friendship La amistad 25

How it begins

Había una vez una venado, —una gama— que tuvo dos hijos mellizos, cosa rara entre los venados.

There was once a deer — a doe — who had two twin children, a rare thing among deer.

That first sentence is the free sample, and the only one on this page. «La gama ciega» 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

Las medias de los flamencos — 1401 wordsLa tortuga gigante — 1710 words El loro pelado — 1882 wordsLa abeja haragana — 2032 words

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