If you LOVE fantasy books, read this!

I've found some really fantastic Spanish fantasy novels- and only one of them has been translated into English as far as I know. Try them out! (by the way, they're all by Laura Gallego García) -El Valle de los Lobos -Fenris, el Elfo -La llamada de los muertos -La Maldicion del Maestro

nosotros hablamos espaniol

Naomi: ¿Son estos libros por los niños o los adolescentes? (In other words, are they easy to read for someone like me who is still reading Spanish at about the second grade level!)

Dan: Tal vez. Los libros son para los adolescentes, pero no son tan dificiles para leer. If you know a good amount of basic Spanish, you could pick out the storyline, but you would need help from a dictionary for some of the words.

Thanks Naomi for taking the time to provide this list of books - this was exactly what I was looking for (Don Quixote is still a bit too difficult for me). I did manage to find one of her books when I was in Spain recently (a more recent one not on your list - highly acclaimed) but the cover was a bit too "girly" for me. I was too macho to pick it up... :-) I settled on "Juego de Tronos" which is working for me but I will certainly be coming back to your list once I finish this book.

So some of you are actually reading books in Spanish? DO you find it is significantly helping your Spanish or is it helping a little?

Rocket Languages is terrific for getting fluent in a language but it doesn't stop there. Speaking from personal experience (particularly from when I was learning French), reading is THE way to increase your vocabulary (with the help of a dictionary of course). On a side note, I also found that watching movies is a terrific way to learn colloquial expressions.

Liz: for me, anyway, listening, speaking, writing and reading Spanish are all beneficial to me. Right now I am reading a book called "El Soñador," about the childhood of the Chilean poet Pablo Neruda. It is agonizingly slow! I encounter words that I must look up, but I may remember them the next time. I think it is helping me spot verbs that I can then decipher the root and conjugation of. And maybe most importantly, reading is helping me understand when and why object pronouns are used, which is probably my biggest problem right now.

Dan: agonizingly slow is why I had to switch from "Cien años de Soledad" and "La Casa de los Espíritus" - I couldn't keep myself motivated enough to get through them. In French, I got started on "Jules Verne" books. Fantasy books in Spanish seem to work for me.