Books by level / Spanish books
Don Quijote de la Mancha: reading level, length and free edition
Don Quijote de la Mancha by Miguel de Cervantes is a novel in Spanish. Our team rates it C2. It runs to 383,633 words with 22,943 different word forms, about 32–64 h of reading at 200 to 100 words per minute, and it is free from Project Gutenberg.
- Author
- Miguel de Cervantes
- Language
- Spanish
- Level
- C2
- Form
- novel
- Words
- 383,633
- Different word forms
- 22,943
- Forms for 95% / 98%
- 7,929 / 15,271
- Reading time
- 32–64 h
- Free edition
- Project Gutenberg
La obra cumbre de la literatura española: aventuras de un hidalgo enloquecido por los libros de caballerías.
Is Don Quijote de la Mancha right for your level?
To recognise 95% of the running words in Don Quijote de la Mancha, you need its 7,929 most frequent word forms; for 98%, the share at which most readers manage a novel without a dictionary, 15,271.
A word form is any spelling that appears in the text, so “walk” and “walked” count twice, and names count too. These numbers are a guide to how much vocabulary the book asks for, not a test. The level itself was set by hand by our team. Before you commit, read one page of the free edition and count the words you do not know: the one-page test takes two minutes.
Which words should you know before you start?
These are the words that Don Quijote de la Mancha uses most often but that are not among the 2,000 most common word forms across all 36 Spanish books in our library; the number is how many times each appears. Names of people and places are left out. Learning a handful of them first makes the opening chapters easier.
- ínsula 119
- rucio 119
- ventero 118
- bachiller 111
- mesma 86
- caballerías 80
- valeroso 78
- hidalgo 76
- jumento 74
- priesa 73
- doncellas 72
- labrador 71
- quisiere 69
- querría 67
- escuderos 65
How does it begin?
Yo, Juan Gallo de Andrada, escribano de Cámara del Rey nuestro señor, de los que residen en su Consejo, certifico y doy fe que, habiendo visto por los señores dél un libro intitulado El ingenioso hidalgo de la Mancha, compuesto por Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, tasaron cada pliego del dicho libro a tres maravedís y …
From the Project Gutenberg edition, which is in the public domain. If this paragraph already feels slow, try a book one level lower.
How long does it take to read?
| Words | 100 wpm | 150 wpm | 200 wpm | 250 wpm |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 383,633 | 64 h | 43 h | 32 h | 26 h |
Learners reading a book at their level often manage 100 to 150 words per minute, and readers in their first language 200 to 250. Where these speeds come from, and a calculator for your own: How long does it take to read a book?
Where can you read it for free?
The free edition is Project Gutenberg eBook #2000. Project Gutenberg publishes books that are in the public domain in the United States, as EPUB, Kindle and plain text, free and without an account. Copyright terms differ by country: if you live outside the United States, check that the book is out of copyright where you are before you download it.
To read it with a translation over every word you tap, open it in Readlang Mobile on iPhone or iPad.
What to read next at C2
Spanish books at the same level that ask for a similar amount of vocabulary:
- Historia de la vida del Buscón, Francisco de Quevedo: 42,981 words, 5,023 forms for 95%
See also all Spanish books by level and books at C2 in all five languages.