Is Anyone Interested in Reading a Spanish Book as a Group?
I think that it might be a fun and helpful way of practicing Spanish if some of us were to read a book together and discuss it in Spanish (I'm think of this for learners at an intermediate level). I'm just going to throw some of my ideas out there and if you're interested add you suggestions and hopefully we will be able to organize something =)
Discuss the book here on SpanisDict. We can practice our Spanish by sharing our thoughts on what we have read and help each other with grammar, vocab, etc.
Maybe have skype calls for spoken discussions and for reading passages out loud (to work on pronunciation).
Read about a chapter (depending on the size) a week. That way we'd be more synchronized and skype calls would be easier. Or about a month or so (depending on the length) could be given for the entire book and threads could be made for the individual chapters/sections. This would give everyone the chance to read at an appropriate pace but still have people close enough to the same sections to get some discussions in as the book progresses.
The book should be popular so that it'll be easy to buy and hopefully easy to find in many public library systems. It would probably be best for the book to be originally in Spanish but a really good translation could work. And maybe we could get some English learners involved if we choose a book that's widely available in Spanish and English.
Perhaps it doesn't even need to be a novel. We could have a short story, poem, article, etc. of the week. I'd imagine that there are many free ones available online. As long as the works are short enough to be easily read in the given amount of time and long enough for several people to be able to converse about it. This might get more people involved over all since there could be many different pieces, each only requiring about a week of commitment.
Anyway, I think it would be a few weeks before we'd be able to start since we need to work out the details, pick something, and give everyone a chance to obtain the book (if that's what we will be using). I look forward to reading everyone's ideas =)
Edit to add The first story, La tortuga gigante, is being discussed here for about the week of May 2nd to May 9th, more or less.
37 Answers
Hello to all. As native Spanish speaker, I know that there are a lot of English people that usually tried to help spaniards teaching them the Shakespeare´s language, so, if you need me, I can help you with your Spanish if you need some help or you have to make some question about our language. Bye!
I'll join in - good idea, if we can decide on how to do it.
I would suggest a short story.
I would be happy to start with some of the short stories by Horacio Quiroga. Here's a link to "Cuentos de la selva", which is made up a number of short stories.
http://www.philosophia.cl/biblioteca/quiroga/Cuentos de la selva.pdf
We could start with the first cuento: La tortuga gigante...!!
They're quite short so they would be perfect for most who don't have a great deal of time on their hands!
Just let me know when and where and I'll try to be there to help in any way I can.
As a reminder, Skype is able to hold about 5 to 7 people at a time. If you would only get together and agree on times and dates, I can make sure to have a channel for us and this, will be LIVE! 
Hello, my friend, it´s been so long since I´ve seen you, I think since the chat room was disabled. I hope everything is going great. Well, your idea is great and I think you should start practicing with chilhood stories. From my own experience I can tell you that when reading stories that your relatives told you during your childhood, you find them quite enjoyable and you familiarize with the words easily since you know the story, in your own language of course. Your mind naturally processes the words that are even unknown for you.
No all people naturally know the same stories and this is perhaps the negative part, but, I think the best choice is to start trying with stories because they are short and you do not have to read a lot to understand them, you can even learn the story in your own language then do it in Spanish, this way they will be easier to understand. If you start reading long novels may be quite boring for some learners, you know reading a novel in another language requires to have a good level.
As you guys get used to reading in Spanish and know each other, you will increase the size of the books. If you organize well, you will learn a lot, it depends on the commitment of each person who is going to take part in this. I would love to learn with you, but unfortunately my time is so limited, for now I am only reading books about topics that are related with my university. Good luck with this very important adventure!!!
Great idea!!! We'll probably need to decide on a book first.
I'll be happy to join in once I become more confident in my Spanish, since I'm still feeling like a fumbling beginner. lol
I think this will have to be done by groups that meet at a certain hour...
My browser is Firefox and I use an addon called FoxClocks. With it you can easily see what is the time anywhere in the world.
Now, I would suggest each one of us, write in this post the time availability and city in which you find yourself.
I will start:
I am available at this moment:
12pm to 11pm Pacific Time ( live in Las Vegas, NV)
I might be able to make it at different times...
If you are interested in a book which is not too difficult you might want to consider,
For anyone with a Facebook account interested in Microcuentos, here's a cool group.
That would be cool
It's nice to see so many people want to participate. I'm sorry my idea isn't very clear so far (I even tried googling it before posting =p ). Hmmm, maybe we should start with some short things that are free online and then after a few weeks we can move on to a novel or stay with the small stuff, depending on what we decide. What do y'all think? I started a thread to ask for recommendation here and a while back I tried to compile a list of books that people recommended for intermediate learners that you find here. Don't be limited by my list, it's just there for ideas.
I preferred books over short stories when I started this thread because I think that books might be easier, but maybe I'm crazy, haha. Whenever I read a book in Spanish (especially if it's been a while) it takes me several pages to get into reading in Spanish and into the particular style of the work. I feel like novels can be a lot more repetitive and you have much more time to fit the pieces together before the work concludes. It also seemed like it would take a bit more work to find quality short stories to read than one book =P That said in Spanish I've read many novels but only one short story on my own.
Any more ideas?
Great idea.
Problems will occur with time zones, that's the only thing.
I think, start with some shorter tales, what about the Cuentos de la Selva by Horacio Quiroga?
A whole book is hard for people who work , epecially if they miss a discussion/chapter or whatever.
Buen idea Broca23. Luís Borges has a lot of great short stories. Some are more challenging then others, but by discussing them as a group it should make the process easier.
I would be interested! I's say I'm at an intermediate level. I'm doing my practicum in a Spanish class and today I borrowed my teachers "Captain Underpants" book that was translated into Spanish. I think doing something with a familiar topic would be kind of cool, so you can connect things that you have learned in Spanish to it's familiar English equivalent.
