Facundo: Civilización y barbarie: reading level, length and free edition

Name: Facundo: Civilización y barbarie
Author: Domingo Faustino Sarmiento

Facundo: Civilización y barbarie by Domingo Faustino Sarmiento is a non-fiction in Spanish. Our team rates it C1. It runs to 101,153 words with 13,730 different word forms, about 8.5–17 h of reading at 200 to 100 words per minute, and it is free from Project Gutenberg.

By the Readlang Mobile team (an independent app, not affiliated with readlang.com). Updated 31 October 2026.

Cover of Facundo: Civilización y barbarie

Author: Domingo Faustino Sarmiento
Language: Spanish
Level: C1
Form: non-fiction
Words: 101,153
Different word forms: 13,730
Forms for 95% / 98%: 8,673 / 11,707
Reading time: 8.5–17 h
Free edition: Project Gutenberg

Ensayo fundacional argentino sobre el caudillismo y la identidad americana.

Is Facundo: Civilización y barbarie right for your level?

To recognise 95% of the running words in Facundo: Civilización y barbarie, you need its 8,673 most frequent word forms; for 98%, the share at which most readers manage a novel without a dictionary, 11,707. The median Spanish C1 book in our table needs 6,704 forms for 95%, so by this measure the book is harder than most for its level: number 6 of 6, easiest first.

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 Facundo: Civilización y barbarie 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.

unitarios 84
provincias 81
pampa 56
europea 56
argentino 48
caudillo 44
ríos 44
barbarie 43
europeos 42
población 41
sistema 41
unitario 39
argentinos 38
pesos 37
presenta 34

How does it begin?

Biografía. —Nació en la ciudad de San Juan el 15 de febrero de 1811, al año siguiente de la Revolución argentina, cuyas agitaciones impresionaron su primera infancia. Fué hijo de José Clemente Sarmiento y de doña Paula Albarracín, ambos sanjuaninos, y de antiguas familias coloniales de Cuyo.

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?

Hours to read *Facundo: Civilización y barbarie* (101,153 words) at four reading speeds.
Words	100 wpm	150 wpm	200 wpm	250 wpm
101,153	17 h	11 h	8.5 h	6.5 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 #33267. 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.