Short Stories in Spanish for Intermediate Learners Bilingual Edition

Several short stories with a good mix of past, present and future tenses. I needed to read more to improve my Spanish and this is an excellent book to help me do just that. An excellent value for the money. If you need to improve your reading and Spanish vocabulary, I highly recommend this book.

I love books by Olly Richards, and Short Stories in Spanish for Intermediate Learners is one of my favorites. The stories are really engaging, and a great method to learn vocabulary and grammar by simply reading great short stories. My only wish was that the stories were written in Latin American Spanish. It's not a deal breaker as European Spanish is primarily the same as Latin American Spanish; however, I wish that option was available for Spanish learners. Also, hopefully another intermediate Spanish short story book will be released in the future as I am a huge fan! Keep up the amazing work, Olly!

All are enjoyable! I particularly liked that all of them ended in an unexpected twist. Encourage you to read them. There’s a nice review of verb tenses.

Book needed for class and I enjoy his stories.

Short easy to read and learn

I’ve only gotten a few chapters into this book but I’m already super-impressed with the writing. It’s just slightly beyond my level of comprehension, which is exactly what I want in order to improve.The story is engaging and entertaining enough to make me want to keep reading.I’ve even noticed that when I see a word that I have to guess the meaning of by context, it will often reappear shortly thereafter with even more clarifying context.Brilliantly done Mr. Richards.

I am a retired Spanish professor of 45 years who offers free online conversation sessions for former students. The Introduction, the How to Read Effectively and the Six Step Reading Process sections at the beginning are all excellently researched and written and provide helpful guidance for students and teacher alike and the lexical and grammatical level is perfect for the intermediate groups that I have. But it seems that the Olly Richard's series are just one set of stories translated into multiple languages. And even that would be fine if they took the time to use names that actually exist in Spanish, but when the editors have not even bothered to change the names to ones that are used in the target culture, or to change the setting to Spanish speaking countries, it seems apparent that these products are mass produced and that not enough care has been taken in editing them. Some stories do incorporate names from Spanish speaking countries like Jaime, Tomáss, Catalina, but too many o them include names like: Jen, Ben, Matt McGee (this was a low point for me), Elaine, Sra. Flickner, Curly, Marty (these from a story set in Oklahoma). It would not have been much trouble to change the names and change the settings to Spanish speaking countries. At least this reader is not plagued with confusing spelling errors and horrible typesetting as in the set of beginning Russian Conversations also published by Olly Richards. I find the short novels written and published by Paco Ardit at Levels A1, A2, B1, B2, C1 and C2 to be a much better series of readers: attention is paid to plot and character development and cultural relevance has been preserved.

I have greatly enjoyed all of Olly Richards books. They have helped me add greatly to my Spanish vocabulary and learn progressively more tenses and verb conjugation. All of this in a way that plays to my love of puzzle solving! I enjoy the variety and creativity of the stories themselves. Some of the intermediate stories have had a darker theme, but have used vocabulary that is needed in a world that also has a darker side. This is a fun and effective way to apply what I've been learning in textbooks about grammar, styntax and verbs. Thank you Olly!