Viaje a Madrid: Bilingual Spanish novel for Beginners with English translation

Los viajes de Marta #1

by Cristina López

Marta is stuck in a long-term relationship with her hopeless boyfriend Pablo. When her family organise a birthday celebration in Madrid, she relishes the opportunity to travel there. The train journey sets her trip – and her life – off course. Find out why and learn Spanish along the way! Viaje a Madrid is a fun, bilingual romantic comedy for Spanish beginners written in the present tense . The language is easy and accessible–and yet, this is no dull story. Viaje a Madrid will keep you turning the pages with characters you can relate to, authentic Spanish settings and plenty of twists and turns. Viaje a Madrid is split into ten chapters. Each chapter Viaje a Madrid is a graded reader and the first book in Los viajes de Marta series. It is mapped to a CERF A2 level and will suit higher beginners.

Genres: Spanish Literature, Fiction, Language, Romance

182 pages, Paperback

Published July 8, 2021

About the author

Cristina López is a Spanish language academic, best-selling author and social media influencer originally from Spain. Now living in the UK, she writes bilingual novels and short stories for Spanish beginners which are loved by readers worldwide. Her page-turning romantic comedies and mystery tales subtly incorporate new vocabulary and grammar, allowing readers to grasp the language in a fun, effortless way.

When not writing or lecturing, Cristina is busy creating language videos for Tik Tok, Instagram, YouTube and more. Catch up with her on her LeanSpanishAtHome accounts!

Reviews

[Philip O’Flynn · Rating 5 out of 5]

W’s on the chat, I just read my first Spanish book. It might have been all in the present tense and a basic ass story but hallelujah

[Abbie · Rating 4 out of 5]

The first Spanish book I’ve read! This book was really good for learning. It has comprehension questions at the end of the Spanish chapter and then an English translation. Plus I enjoyed the story too! I would recommend for anyone trying to learn Spanish

[Kendra Sanchez · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am learning Spanish and this was my first novel in Spanish. The storyline was pretty simple but it's hard to judge it against other books since it's main purpose is language learning. Overall it was a good balance between being understandable and still interesting. I'm looking forward to reading the second one.

[Miriam]

A very good idea for those on intermediate level of Spanish wanting to begin reading in Spanish. Having finished, I feel great knowing that I can read a simple novel!

[Allie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pablo es un pinche culero ¡y lo odio!

[Carina Zatarain Zepka · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very great concept. The story was easy to follow—if not a bit robotic—but I understand that it’s written in a way to learn. Reading it in Spanish had more of a flow and was actually funny because a lot of the phrases were natural to the language. I think the English translations could have been worked to fit the story rather than the literal translations. For example, she mentions how someone is watching “fútbol” and translates it to “football” when it should be soccer—at least for an American English understanding. Or when she wrote that there were “cuatro litros de sangria” and translates it to “four litres of sangria.” Just sounds too literal when we would just say “pitchers” or something. Or saying “the dog Toto barked” after already introducing that the parents had a dog and obviously the only thing that would bark would be a dog. Maybe it was for the sake of educational repetition, but unnecessary.

My biggest editing peeve was that there were a lot of grammatical errors. Missing punctuations or quotation marks before periods. Overall needed better editing. I’m down to edit if there will be another in the series!

[Medha · Rating 4 out of 5]

I teach Spanish and I am forever searching for story books which are not too basic (that my students sleep off) and not too difficult (that they keep on asking questions after reading each sentence).

I liked this book because it has important vocab listed at the start and every chapter is translated in English, but its after the Spanish chapter (so that you don't keep on reading one line in both the languages simultaneously and loose out on the fun of reading a story).

The story is good too and perfect for teenagers and up. The genre is romance, so I don't think you can use it for the younger crowd.

I am actually looking forward to reading the sequel - 'Viaje a Inglaterra'

Perfect for upper beginners and Intermediates.

[Shannon · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love this series. I hope the author writes more. The structure is perfect for me, an adult trying to revive the Spanish I learned decades ago in high school.

The story is a delightful romantic comedy with lovable characters. I would enjoy the story in any language.

The only reason I didn’t give the book 5 stars is because it needs another round of editing. Sometimes the vocabulary list didn’t match the bold vocabulary in the chapter. Also, sometimes the translation didn’t quite match. For example, she might list three things a person put on, but in english, she only lists two things. It’s not a big deal, but it happened enough to make me drop a star.

[Aneta · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lovely story to practice your spanish comprehension.

It was very entertaining to read, I wanted to just keep on reading and reading which helped me to get through.

I would recommend it to beginners in Spanish, I'm A2 and I could understand everything from the context but I still got some new vocabulary. So even if you have just started learning Spanish a couple weeks ago, you can still try it.

There's also a complete English translation after each chapter which is helpful if you can't translate a particular sentence or even a whole paragraph. Comprehension questions also help to make sure you paid attention.
There are many dialogues which just makes the story so fast-paced.

[Mel T · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great for intermediate level Spanish learners. I found the story easy to follow with the aid of the glossary and translated text when needed. Author Cristina Lopez succeeded in her goal of creating a story that readers could "get the gist" of without having to constantly refer back to the glossary. The story is cute - I found myself anxious to start each new chapter to see what was going to happen next. I'll be looking for more books like these to improve my comprehension.

[Janessa · Rating 5 out of 5]

I think this book is a GREAT tool for Spanish language learning. The story is simple enough that you can fill in the gaps if you’re unsure of a word/expression and follow along without constantly referring to a dictionary or the glossary at the beginning of each chapter.

However, I will heavily emphasize that this is for true beginners (A1-A2) level. Being at a B1-B2 level myself, this wasn’t challenging enough. Still an enjoyable read and I did learn a few new words!

[Colin · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an attractively produced and very skilfully constructed novella which takes the Spanish learner through an interesting plot and explains vocabulary and meaning along the way. It is a great way to learn to read Spanish and because it is dialogue-heavy, is really useful to help Spanish conversation.

[maya C · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fun book to read as a Spanish learner

As an adult Spanish learner, this is a fun and different way to improve your Spanish comprehension. The way the author has structured the book is terrific, and but the end of the book you feel a bit more confident in your reading comprehension for sure!

[Claire · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great for beginners

This is a basic but enjoyable story for adults learning Spanish. I like the structure from a learning perspective as well as finding myself wanting to know what happens with Marta's love life too!

[Ronald Gordon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Enjoyable and educational in equal measure.

It’s sounds like such a cliché but it’s true. It’s a really good story and you feel a connection with the characters but at the same time you improve your proficiency and confidence in Spanish

[emma · Rating 4 out of 5]

4 but not a true rating. This book accomplished exactly what I was hoping it would, and though it took me months to commit and sit down and read, I thought the mix of a (relatively) decent plot + the point of the book (Spanish comprehension) was super well done :) Excited to get to B2 by fall :)

[Jennifer Tate · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love the books by this author. I'm really starting to see how much progress I'm making and how much more comprehension I have of the Spanish language. I look forward to a day where I can read this back without any kind of translation. The story is sweet and fun and enjoyable.

[Dawn McManus · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another great learning tool

I really enjoyed the first book. Its a great way to get a good feel of the flow of the language. Thank you.. now on to book 2. I want to see what she and Alex do next. 😊

[Rhonda · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a good way to check your learning of Spanish vocabulary and simple sentence comprehension. It's written using only present tense verbs! The story is fine. I recommend this book as good additional strategy to augment learning Spanish.

[sara blomquist · Rating 5 out of 5]

if you are learning Spanish, this is a confidence booster!

Great stories, I love that it is easy enough to read with my Spanish I have learned from class. It has helped me practice my Spanish reading and acquisition.

[Maria Endreva · Rating 5 out of 5]

Funny Story in simple Spanish for Beginners. I le Armed a lot.

[Solene · Rating 4 out of 5]

I want to start reading in spanish and this novel is a great way to start. I'm so happy to see that I can understand an easy novel.

[Lucio Rao · Rating 4 out of 5]

este libro es muy útil para mi, tenía un poco dramático pero es muy fácil para extranjero.

[~ riv ~ · Rating 3 out of 5]

⭐️3.5/5⭐️

Definitely recommend !!

[Katie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read this for Spanish book club—cute story, real-world applicable vocab, and easy-to-follow Spanish. If you don’t understand everything, you can read the chapters in English.

[Sebastian Bell · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great read for beginners in Spain, more invested than I thought I'd be.

[lily ivy · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5⭐️ rlly enjoyed the story and definitely helped improve my Spanish reading skills. Easy enough that you don’t need the translation but just need to use the glossary for a few words

[Anthony Frencken · Rating 5 out of 5]

Surprisingly enjoyable and quite easy to read!

[Stacie Lauro · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great book to help learn Spanish in a fun way!

[Katharina Schülke · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sehr gut zum lernen, etwas zu einfach aber ich glaub wenn man startet ist das perfekt.