Book recommendation! · Spanish Fluency Club

Book recommendation!

I've been slowy (VERY SLOWLY) reading El Invencible Verano de Liliana. Its a gorgeously poetic and intense piece: A non fiction story of a woman who returns to Mexico to investigate the murder of her sister and in the process, recreate her sister's life. It's very advanced, so its definitely for later on in your spanish journey. It's way way above my level. But, I wanted to share how I'm using it for intense study (versus extensive reading, which consists of written input much closer to my actual Spanish level- I just read without saving words or worrying to much as long as I can follow the story).

Intense study kinda sucks in all honesty. But its helped me bridge the huge gaps between comprehension levels. Once you reach intermediate there's this massive rift between what you can understand and truly native content and sometimes it feels insurmountable.

So - I read a chapter in Spanish, then I read it again but using the English translation, then again in Spanish picking out words or phrases that were difficult for me. I save those. And study them. Later on, when I've finished the book, I'll sometimes listen to the audio version.

Obviously its an intense amount of work and I only have about 30 minutes of brain space for it at any given moment. But my comprehension of written Spanish sky rockets whenever I have the grit to do it for any length of time. You can also intensely study audio or written words just slightly above your level and its not so tedious and suicide inducing!

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Book recommendation!