Spanish books at B1 level

What B1 means, in numbers

• 24 lessons at this level on this site, lesson 43 to lesson 66, all free.
• 7,887 words of B1 Spanish to read straight through, and that is the story alone: the vocabulary, the grammar and the exercises come on top of it.
• 329 words a lesson on average, from 299 to 361. About ten minutes of reading each.
• 4 review units, one every five lessons, that go back over the level instead of adding to it.

The Spanish itself

• The present subjunctive in all four of its jobs: wanting, asking, feeling and doubting.
• The pluperfect, reported speech in the past, and conditions with si.
• Connectors and register: the words that hold a written paragraph together.
• Sentences long enough that you have to keep the beginning in your head to get to the end.

B1 is the ceiling of every graded reader here, the three novels included. Above it the adaptation stops and Cervantes starts: that is B2.

What B1 Spanish actually reads like

The opening of Lesson 43, The Princess Micomicona, exactly as it stands on the page. Nothing here has been simplified for the example.

• Don Quijote llevaba semanas en Sierra Morena, medio desnudo entre las rocas, porque hacía penitencia por amor a Dulcinea.

  Don Quixote had spent weeks in the Sierra Morena, half naked among the rocks, because he was doing penance for love of Dulcinea.

• No quería marcharse de allí, aunque el cura y el barbero de su pueblo habían venido a buscarlo.

  He did not want to leave the place, although the priest and the barber from his village had come to look for him.

Read the whole of Lesson 43, free

The 24 free lessons at B1

All of them are on this site, in full, with no account and no sign-up. Each one is a chapter of Don Quixote rewritten at B1, with its vocabulary, its grammar and its exercises. There are 4 review units among them as well, one every five lessons.

• The Princess MicomiconaLesson 43The present subjunctive: the form, and wanting
• The Favour the Princess AsksLesson 44Asking, begging, ordering: the subjunctive of influence
• A Night at the InnLesson 45The subjunctive of emotion: me alegro de que
• The Giant’s HeadLesson 46Doubt and denial: no creo que
• The Reunion at the InnLesson 47Negative orders, and addressing somebody as usted
• The Battle of the WineskinsLesson 48The connectors that hold a story together
• Arms and LettersLesson 49Discourse markers and the formal register
• The Captive of AlgiersLesson 50The pluperfect: what had already happened
• Zoraida’s LettersLesson 51Reported speech in the past
• The Escape by SeaLesson 52Si with the present: the condition that really can happen
• Basin or HelmetLesson 53Agreeing and disagreeing
• The Brawl at the InnLesson 54Ponerse, volverse, hacerse, quedarse
• The Cage on the Ox CartLesson 55The passive with ser and a participle
• The Knight Back in BedLesson 56Periphrases: seguir, dejar de, volver a
• Their Story Is in PrintLesson 57Talking about books and what gets published
• The Mistakes in the BookLesson 58Es raro que and the subjunctive
• Sancho and Teresa ArgueLesson 59Kitchen Spanish and proverbs
• The Third SallyLesson 60Cuando plus the subjunctive
• Looking for Dulcinea’s PalaceLesson 61El que sea: relative clauses in the subjunctive
• Three Peasant Girls on the RoadLesson 62Lo bueno, lo peor, lo que
• The Cart of the PlayersLesson 63Exclamations with qué
• The Knight of the MirrorsLesson 64Comparatives and superlatives
• The Knight in the Green CoatLesson 65Ser and estar for describing a person
• The Adventure of the LionsLesson 66The whole of B1 in one scene

The books at B1

Everything above is free and stays free. The books exist for the two things a web page cannot do: being read away from a screen, and being read in order without twenty other links on the same page.

The course at B1, in two volumes

• B1 · Part 1Lessons 43 to 54, in paperback and on Kindle
• B1 · Part 2Lessons 55 to 66, in paperback and on Kindle

The same 24 lessons that are free above, printed with room to write the answers in. The whole course in one file is 11.99 € in EPUB and PDF.

The three graded readers, A2 to B1

Three complete novels rewritten so that a reader at B1 can get through them: the hard words are at the foot of the page you are on, there is no facing translation to fall back into, and no exercises. The first chapter of each one is a free PDF, so you can measure the level before you spend anything.

• Don Quixote in Easy Spanish58 episodes · 5.99 € in EPUB and PDF, or paperback on Amazon
• Around the World in Eighty Days in Easy Spanish58 episodes · 5.99 € in EPUB and PDF
• The War of the Worlds in Easy Spanish58 episodes · 5.99 € in EPUB and PDF

All three together are 11.99 €, against 17.97 € one at a time.