How the editions work
What is in each book, how the two directions work, and how an edition is made.
What is in each book
- Paragraph-level parallel text. The two languages sit side by side, one paragraph at a time.
- End-of-chapter vocabulary notes. About twenty entries per chapter: idioms, period vocabulary, and culturally loaded expressions a dictionary alone won't explain.
- Kindle dictionary auto-switching. Every paragraph carries a language tag, so long-pressing a word opens the dictionary for that language and not the other one.
- A guide to studying with the book. Three ways to read it: target-language first for B2 and up, native-language first for B1 to B2, and shadow reading.
How a page reads
En mis años más jóvenes y vulnerables, mi padre me dio un consejo que desde entonces no he dejado de dar vueltas en mi cabeza.
In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I’ve been turning over in my mind ever since.
—Siempre que te sientas tentado a criticar a alguien —me dijo—, recuerda que no toda la gente de este mundo ha tenido las ventajas que tú has tenido.
“Whenever you feel like criticizing any one,” he told me, “just remember that all the people in this world haven’t had the advantages that you’ve had.”
Two directions
Each title comes in separate editions, one per direction. The edition for learners of Spanish sets the Spanish text first with the English alongside; its mirror sets the English first, with the Spanish alongside, for Spanish speakers learning English. On this site they are marked ES · EN and EN · ES.
Editions for English speakers learning German, French, Spanish, Italian, Japanese, Finnish, Swedish, Korean, Norwegian, Chinese, Brazilian Portuguese, and Portuguese.
English editions for speakers of Brazilian Portuguese, Japanese, Spanish, German, French, Finnish, and Portuguese.
How we make an edition
- Complete text. Each edition contains the full text of the edition it is based on. We check it against that text so that no paragraph is left out.
- Aligned in small pairs. Paragraphs are split at sentence boundaries, so both languages of a pair stay on the same Kindle page.
- Translated for meaning. Idioms are translated as idioms in the other language, not word-for-word renderings.
- Vocabulary notes. About twenty per chapter: idioms without a clean equivalent, false friends, period and cultural references, grammar and register traps.
- Translated originals. Some books were first written in another language. For these, the English text is an older public-domain translation, and the title page names the translator.
- Extended checks before publication. Structural checks, an automated comparison against the source and the sibling editions, and a close reading of all passages from across each book.
- Levels. Each title is assigned a CEFR band: most are B2 to C1, a few B1 to B2. The guide in each book suggests three ways to read: the language you're learning first from B2, your own language first at B1 to B2, and shadow reading.