The Road to One-Million Words: an exhaustive analysis of the books I read, the hours I'm at, and the lessons I've learned
Hi all! I've been learning Spanish since around this past September and have enjoyed being part of this community. One of the best things about the journey so far is (finally!) being able to read. Beginning at around 500 hours, I picked up beginners books and worked my way up to finishing up Prisoner of Azkaban today, rounding off my TOTAL WORDS READ at 1.12 million words and TOTAL NUMBER OF HOURS at 1116. Inspired by this post, and my general frustration about how little people around here talk about their reading journey, I decided to give an exhaustive analysis of my journey to 1 million words.
Linked is the reading list. How this post will go is I will generally go book-by-book and give my thoughts. Before beginning, two warnings:
Word count may be a bit off, especially for Juan's books. Annoyingly, most of the books on this list do not have publicly-available wordcounts, and the Amazon Web Reader is unable to give a wordcount of the books you're reading. And so I had to estimate for several of these books.
If the dates look a bit off, this is because there are some days in which I can read all day; others where I can't. So some of these books were finished in periods of time one would think a bit peculiar.
GENERAL THOUGHTS
So far, I can generally divide my reading journey so far into three sections:
0-525,000: This period was mostly made up of graded readers, specifically by authors Juan Fernandez and Olly Richards. I began reading at around 500 hours, so a bit earlier than advised. Predictably, this was probably the most directly difficult part of the journey. The difficulty wasn't the process of reading itself. I began reading a bit earlier than recommended (500 hours) but surprisingly found that I could understand the A1 readers fairly easily. The difficulty was more in how boring the content was. This isn't an insult to Juan and Olly, who are very good at writing short stories. The problem is that the kinds of stories that could be told were necessarily limited by the grammatical tools and vocabulary available. So stories with a good deal of complexity and depth were out of my reach.
500,000-684,000 - The shortest section, transitional in nature, and where things really started cooking. I reached 525k words at around 750 hours. All the books in this section were beginner young adult books written by author Lemony Snicket. Overall, probably the point where sparks began to fly and I began thinking "Oh my God, I can read real books in Spanish! For beginners wanting to become intermediate readers, I cannot recommend the Spanish translation of A Series of Unfortunate Events highly enough. Snicket employs a lot of ironic and deadpan humor which takes the form of over-explaining things or characters repetitiously explaining certain plot elements. I'll get to why that's good in a second.
685,000-1,125,186 - My present stage of the journey and where I felt I could truly tell people "Yeah, I can read in Spanish." I reached 685k words at around 843 hours. Most of the books in this section were advanced young adult books written by Rick Riordan, Lemony Snicket, and J.K. Rowling. The first book I read in this stretch was The Lightning Thief, which was such a big jump in difficulty from Snicket that it took a week to adjust to the prose. However, I was happy to see that things got easier as I approached the end.
After finishing The Lightning Thief, I read a couple more Snicket books before finally starting Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. I read the first page of Sorcerer's Stone sporadically over the past 500 hours to check if it was easy enough to read, but no dice. It was only at around 945 hours did it finally click and Harry Potter was sufficiently easy enough for me to read.
HOW DID I ENJOY EACH BOOK
I'm going to quickly go through each book and (if there are several books of each author) series in the order in which I read them and give my general thoughts:
Hola Lola by Juan Fernandez - Big fan, excellent beginner's book. Very fun story despite the very simple vocabulary and grammar. I unironically recommend everyone to start with this book. 8/10.
El Hombre Fascinante by Juan Fernandez - Another banger by Juan, does a great job introducing the past tense, with an even better story than Hola Lola. 9/10.
Ana Estudiante by Paco Ardit - I'm going to be harsh here. Going from Juan's books to Paco's was such a huge letdown. There's so little story here I found myself checking my phone often. 1/10.
Short Stories in Spanish for Beginners by Olly Richards - This is a very fun set of short stories! Olly, like Juan, is a great storyteller. However, I do not recommend beginners start here. This is more intermediate than beginner. Still a good way to get out of your comfort zone though. 6/10.
La Prof de Escuela by Juan Fernandez - My favorite Juan book. Super fun story, great characters, appropriate lower-intermediate level, and introduces (some) of the subjunctive. 9/10
Ano Nuevo, Vido Nueva by Juan Fernandez - I honestly don't remember much of this, which is odd considering it's longer than La Prof de Escuela. It's honestly just fine. 5/10
Me Voy O Me Quedo by Juan Ferndandez - A step above La Prof de Escula in difficulty. A very good graded reader that toes the line between lower- and upper-intermediate. This is especially good if you're itching to read something that strikes a more serious tone (Juan tackles the issue of immigration in a small British hamlet outside London) while maintaining the silly humor we normally associate with Juan. 7/10
El Asedio del Supermercado by Ana Martin - Graded reader I got from Amazon. It's... fine. Not too much story, very short, and easy to the point of being boring. Just stick with Juan imo. 4/10
Fantasmas del Pasado by Juan Fernandez - I'm torn here. On the one hand, Juan aims for something a bit darker than his usual stories and I think he generally succeeds here. On the other hand, a good bit of the writing is overwrought even for a graded reader. Me Voy O Me Quedo does a better job tackling serious subject matter with more likable characters. Though I suppose Juan purposely wrote the characters in this one to be pretty unlikable, so I hesitate to count this against the book itself. I think this is a good introduction to some of the mid-intermediate graded readers though. Just don't expect this to have the likability of La Prof de Escuela. 6/10
Short Stories in Spanish for Beginners vol 2 by Olly Richards - take what I said about Olly's first volume of short stories and apply it here. Even at this level, this book was still a bit challenging, which renders the for Beginners part of the title quite questionable. But aside from the flawed advertising, the stories in here are pretty entertaining and serve as a good bridge to the intermediate level if you're looking for something challenging. 6/10.
A Series of Unfortunate Events by Lemony Snicket - I read too many of these books to review each one. This is a fantastic series of books that serve as a wonderful start to the easier young adult books out there. I loved these books growing up and I think you will too. The books follow three orphans as they go from guardian to guardian fleeing the devious Count Olaf who is after their fortune. As I alluded above, Snicket employs quite a bit of sardonic humor in his books and plays with language quite a bit.
Normally, puns would be off the table for those at a beginner/intermediate level. But much of the humor and the way in which Snicket plays with language comes from repetition and over-explanation, which happens to be very useful for someone learning the language. The plots are fun, the literary aesthetic is great (think of a darker Wes Anderson), and it'll keep you hooked from beginning to end. Overall, if you're looking for your first "real" young adult book to read, I give this a 10/10.
The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan - Oh man, now this was a jump. I loved the books growing up, so I thought reading this would be a piece of cake. Nope! The first few chapters were especially rough. Fortunately, I adjusted, and this served as a good jumping off point to more advanced young adult books. Very fun! Overall: 8/10
Harry Potter by J.K Rowling - Ah. Here we are. The books to read for someone trying to get good at Spanish. I've waited and worked so long to finally get this to CI level. And it was worth it! I don't need to tell you what these books are about. The ambience is very whimsical, the adventures are fun, etc.
The only thing I'd say is that, speaking as someone who prefers more advanced literature, this could be a bit of a slog to read. This isn't to dunk on Rowling's writing. I mostly say this because you can really tell these books are written for children. The prose is uninspired and the dialogue is generally pretty wooden. Fortunately this hasn't impeded my enjoyment of the books; if anything, it's spurred me to read more. Hopefully, give or take a couple more books, I'll finally be able to move on to some more advanced stuff like the Reina Roja trilogy. Overall: 7/10
GENERAL TAKEAWAYS
How would you rate your reading abilities now that you're past 1 million words?
I'd say very well! I think past 1 million words, one can tentatively say they can read in Spanish. Now, that absolutely isn't to say I understand every word on each page. However, I can pretty easily follow every major and 80 percent of the minor plot points throughout Harry Potter at my level. Which, I think, is the most important result.
How do you know when a book is CI?
It generally comes down to gut feeling. Only you can determinate what's comprehensible and what's not. The above is a guide and not a set of mandatory deadlines. However, I'll give some good advice that worked for me. If you feel your eyes gliding over the page and receiving an image of what's going on without having to work very hard, it's comprehensible. Note, the picture doesn't need to be crystal clear; it just has to be there.
To use a metaphor, think of yourself as an explorer in the African Savannah. A book that's just good enough to be CI is like wading through a field of grass as tall as your shoulders. It's not easy, but you can move with ease. However, if a book feels like being an explorer in the Brazilian rainforest, with you having to slash through vines, branches, and greenery just to move a few feet at a time, then that book is not CI just yet.
What are your plans pertaining to reading going forward?
I hope to get to 2 million words read by the time I hit 1500 hours in mid-May. Right now, I plan on finishing the rest of A Series of Unfortunate Events to give myself a break after Harry Potter. Hopefully, by that point, I can try my hand at a thriller novel directed towards adults like one of the Reina Roja books.
Would you say reading has helped your listening?
Yes, absolutely. I have a far larger vocabulary than I would otherwise and I'm able to better understand more stuff said in movies/TV shows by virtue of having already encountered those words while reading. I'm also better equipped to express myself while speaking, which is a big plus.
What's one thing you would change how you went about things?
In previous posts, I mentioned my trepidation with discounting reading from the Dreaming Spanish 'Progress' metrics. However, after some thought and reading some of the thoughts of the community, I've concluded that one should not count reading as 'hours'. While a source of input, reading is different enough from listening that neither can be a proper substitute for the other. So, doing it over again, I would not have counted my reading as hours of CI in a proper sense.
Are there any things you'd like to tell the community?
Yes. Do not be afraid to begin reading earlier than 600 hours. Personally, I love reading, and so waiting for 600 hours felt like torture. I think Pablo's advice holds quite a bit of water. When I tried reading Hola Lola at around 150 hours, it was a tremendous struggle. But starting at 500, it was much easier and more fun. So, waiting in general is good advice.
However, I don't think waiting until 600 hours is necessary. By 500 hours, your sub-vocalization will probably good enough to begin reading by that point. I partly think at least some of the fixation on waiting until (¡Dios mío!) 1000 hours to start reading is the product of anxiety about having a less-than-perfect accent. I'm here to tell you this: speaking as someone who begin italki conversation practice at 600 hours, and has now accrued a total of 100 hours of speaking experience, my pronunciation is good.
Am I recognizably American? Yes. Am I able to be understood? Yes. There is a difference between accent and pronunciation. My tutors have told me my pronunciation is excellent and that they can easily understand me. At the end of the day, when you're learning a language, being understood is what really matters. And there are few ways to improve at this other than by reading books and acquiring a larger vocabulary which allows you to achieve a finer level of nuance your manner of expression. So no, do not worry about your accent if you begin reading a bit earlier than what the roadmap recommends.
Anyways, accents are fun. Embrace it!
CONCLUSION
I love reading and am fully intent on continuing to read. I highly, highly recommend the beginners of this sub to begin reading when you feel like you have the ability to do so! That could be 600 hours, 500 hours, or even 700 hours. Overall, just try to have fun and really learn the language. :)
My Past Progress Posts: