9 Great Spanish Books For Beginners: Learn Spanish With Ease [2025]

Spanish is one of my favorite languages. Whenever I learn a foreign language, I like to incorporate many resources to improve my skills, including reading.

As a beginner, it’s a bit difficult to understand at first. Still, I’ve been reading easy books for beginners that work with simple vocabulary and dialogues. They’ll prepare you to speak in daily situations in a Spanish-speaking country.

So, in this article, I’d like to give you some ideas about how I’ve been learning Spanish with these books and the best 9 Spanish books for beginners.

Grab one, and start reading. It’s fun!

9 Great Spanish Books For Beginners

Here is a list of the best Spanish books for beginners. I suggest starting with the first two and keep going through the list as you read:

1. 101 Conversations In Simple Spanish
2. Short Stories In Spanish
3. Series Of Spanish Novels For Beginners
4. Papelucho
5. First Spanish Reader
6. El Principito
7. Gael Y La Red De Mentiras
8. Vivos Se Los Llevaron
9. 501 Spanish Verbs

1. 101 Conversations In Simple Spanish

Immerse yourself into the real-world Spanish language with 6 main characters talking about their everyday life. 

You’ll be driven into a real-life conversation that will help you understand and speak like a local.

These dialogues come from typical daily situations, such as being in a shop or café, ordering something, making arrangements, meeting friends and people on the street, and communicating with them easily.

In each chapter, you’ll also find English definitions and explanations to guide you through the context, words, and their meanings. 

It mainly includes expressions written in the typical Castilian Spanish spoken in Spain.

I recommend starting with this book as it’s the easiest to navigate and understand for a beginner.

➡ Get ‘101 Conversations In Simple Spanish’ here & start reading.

2. Short Stories In Spanish

Short Stories in Spanish contains interesting stories (8) set in various backgrounds.

The stories are in various genres, from crime stories to fiction, romance, and comedy. They are captivating and easy to understand for beginners.

They’ll soon give you the feeling you are progressing with your Spanish.

The book also contains the 1000 most frequent words to help you understand the core of the stories. It also gives you a bilingual word list and a summary of the plot.

There is a section with comprehension questions after each chapter to ensure you are on track with the story.

The mixture of stories, comprehensive questions, and easy-to-understand language style will definitely help you improve your Spanish skills.

➡ Get ‘Short Stories In Spanish’ here & start reading.

👉 READ ALSO: Do You Need Spanish To Travel To Spain? My Experience

3. Series Of Spanish Novels For Beginners

Getting a book series is one of the best things we, as language learners, can do. You don’t have to think about which book to read next once you finish reading one book. The other 4 books are waiting for you to read them.

But mainly, they are all written in the same style. You’ll get used to it, and it’ll be easier to understand the next episodes. They have similar sentence structures and will cover a wide range of vocabulary for you.

➡ Get all 5 book series here.

These Spanish novel series contains the following books:

Ana Estudiante

The story about Ana reveals her life as a psychology student at the University, where she falls in love with her teacher, prepares for exams, and goes out with her friends. It takes place in Buenos Aires, Argentina, so you’ll also learn a bunch of Argentinian slang.

What happens with her love and the teacher? Read the story and get to know Ana’s life more.

➡ Get Ana Estudiante Book here.

Fútbol En Madrid

A hilarious story about soccer in Madrid. It’s particularly about a man in his fifties who is crazy about soccer and Real Madrid as his favorite team. He dreams of playing in the Spanish League (Liga Española).

Is he going to pursue this dream and achieve it? Find out more.

➡ Get Fútbol En Madrid book here.

Tango Milonga

Rodolfo’s passion and whole life are tango. He’s a tango dancer and lives in Buenos Aires. His daily routine is visiting milongas. However, one day, he gets hit by a car and breaks his leg, and his life is turned upside down.

Is he going to recover, be able to dance tango again, and live his life? Read this book to immerse yourself in the story of a passionate tango dancer, his struggles, and how he solves them.

➡ Get Tango Milonga book here.

Los Novios

Pablo and Pamela are an engaged couple about to get married soon. They can’t wait to start living together and are sure that life will be beautiful. However, they aren’t aware of how much time and stress it involves to plan a wedding.

They soon realize that it isn’t necessary to get married. Are they going to handle it or leave the wedding behind? Find out more.

➡ Get Los Novios book here.

Muerte En Buenos Aires

A detective story takes place in Buenos Aires. A woman is murdered in her flat without further reason or notice. A detective, Miguel, has a crazy plan to catch the murderer.

How is he going to find the murderer? Come and hop on the crazy adventure with him.

➡ Get Muerte En Buenos Aires book here.

4. Papelucho

Papelucho is an 8-year-old boy from a middle-class family,  and the story reveals his life in 12 book series. Learn more about the daily routine and activities of the boy living in Santiago de Chile, where the stories are all based on the author’s own experience from his childhood.

The illustrations in these books will help you understand the story. This book is also perfect for beginners and full of useful vocabulary.

The narratives are pretty short, so they’ll help you get your daily Spanish language dose without falling asleep (like I tend to do after an exhausting day).

Since I’m all about learning languages for travel here at Voices of Travel, I recommend the book ‘Papelucho en Vacaciones‘; it’ll give you a perfect base and teach you a few travel phrases.

➡ Get ‘Papelucho’ here & start reading.

5. First Spanish Reader

This book will take you to a life in Hispanic countries, the culture and thinking of Spanish-speaking people.

It uses simple vocabulary, which makes it easy to understand for you as a beginner. The best part of it is that it offers English translation on the opposite page so you can double-check and look up new words right away.

Have your language travel notebook ready to write these new words down. It also includes vocabulary and some exercises to help you work with new vocabulary from the book.

➡ Get ‘First Spanish Reader’ here & start reading.

6. El Principito

One of the most effective ways to learn and practice your Spanish in book reading is to take a story you already know. El Principito might be one of those.

Since you are already familiar with the story and happening, you can associate things and vocabulary much easier. It also helps you to assume the meaning of words before looking them up in a dictionary. It’s an amazing method.

This book is particularly great for small dialogues and to learn past tense.

➡ Get ‘El Principito’ here & start reading.

7. Gael Y La Red De Mentiras

It’s a thrilling story about a burglar who has to steal a famous painting from one of the popular galleries in Europe.

It’s a series of three books. The other two are called Gael y las Sombras de la huida (Gael and the Shadows of Flight), and Gael y el arte de la traición (Gael and the Art of Treason). All three stories contain lies, an exciting plot, bad and good characters, action, and fun dialogue.

On his adventures, Gael will take you to many Spanish places, such as Madrid and Mallorca, so you’ll learn a lot about Spanish culture, too.

It’s a comic book, so it’ll help you make associations to understand Spanish more. You’ll learn a language you can hear on the street, slang, and even vulgar expressions.

At the end of the book, the glossary is written in three languages: English, German, and French. It also provides vocabulary exercises, and its footnotes explain the words’ meaning.

➡ Get ‘Gael Y La Red De Mentiras’ here & start reading.

👉 READ ALSO: Is French Or Spanish More Useful In Europe? My Experience

8. Vivos Se Los Llevaron

This is a true-life story with a fascinating plot. Mexican police and 43 student teachers suddenly disappear from a college. The novel is based on interviews and official documents investigating this issue.

It also addresses many problems that have evolved in Mexico and many other countries, including drugs, corruption, and citizens being caught in everyday life.

Thanks to its graphics, this book is suitable for beginners. However, it’s already more for intermediate learners, as the story is more complex and uses more advanced vocabulary.

You’ll love this story, especially if you are interested in such issues and real life in Mexico.

➡ Get ‘Vivos Se Los Llevaron’ here & start reading.

9. 501 Spanish Verbs

Lastly, I have a great grammar book that will help you learn Spanish verbs and understand their conjugation.

It contains the most useful verbs. Verbs are the core of the Spanish language, and we need to learn them to be able to construct our first sentences and dialogues as beginners.

I don’t want you to memorize the verbs and their conjugations too much. But I encourage you to have this book with you. Once you are reading, listening, or speaking and you don’t know how to use a word in other persons, you can look it up in this book.

It’ll serve as a guide and a reference and will back you up when you are stuck. It’s really a great source that will help you lay the groundwork for your Spanish skills.

➡ Get ‘501 Spanish verbs’ here & start learning.

How To Learn Spanish With Book Reading

Here are the 2 ways I approach Spanish learning when reading books:

1. Approach

First, read 1 page from your Spanish book and try to understand the context. After, reread it and highlight each word you don’t understand and want to remember. After, look these words up in a Spanish dictionary (or online).

I also suggest putting these words into a Google Translate, listening to their pronunciation, and repeating them a few times. It’ll make you remember Spanish words more easily, and you’ll get the pronunciation right at the beginning.

Then, write these new words into your language notebook to keep a list of words you want to learn.

You can follow this approach when you’re trying to learn new vocabulary as you’re reading.

2. Approach

The second way is to read the book, 1 or 2 pages a day, without looking up the words. You only focus on understanding the context and assuming the meaning of the chapters.

However, this approach is better to practice once you understand more vocabulary at the intermediate level.

Benefits Of Reading Books When Learning Spanish

Here are some of the reasons why I recommend reading books in Spanish and how it’ll benefit you:

• teach you basic vocabulary
• easy to understand for beginners
• help you understand the structure of the language and sentences
• prepare you for everyday life conversations
• help you memorize words in context
• learning Spanish while reading interesting stories
• help you understand the Spanish and Latino culture

👉 READ ALSO: 7 Benefits Of Learning A Foreign Language For Travel

BONUS: How To Learn Spanish By Yourself

I’ve been following my own method to learn Spanish and other languages. It involves learning vocabulary in topics/situations in which you’re realistically going to and want to speak it. This makes the entire learning process more engaging and fun, rather than just following a language app.

So, if you want to learn Spanish with me, click on the image below and read the full article with a step-by-step guide for how to learn Spanish by yourself:

Get My Language Travel Notebook

I’ve also designed a language notebook for you to keep track of new words and Spanish vocabulary for each topic.

When you want to learn a new word, write it down (with a translation), and return to it when you need to remember its meaning. It’s like creating your own dictionary.

Get my language travel notebook below:

Learn Spanish With Me

I’ve also created specific dialogues about ordering food and drinks in a restaurant once you travel to a Spanish-speaking country.

So, if you want to learn vocabulary specifically for this situation, get my free Spanish language sheets below:

FAQs

I’ve also answered some frequently asked questions about Spanish books and learning in general. So check my answers below:

What Is The Best Beginner Spanish Book?

101 Conversations In Simple Spanish is the best book for Spanish beginner learners. It uses simple vocabulary in daily dialogues, so it’s easy to process and it’ll prepare you to speak in every day situations in a Spanish-speaking country.

Can I Learn Spanish Just By Reading?

Yes, you can if you also focus on learning new vocabulary. Learning just by reading is possible, but make extra effort to memorize new words and remember them in context.

What Book Should I Read To Improve My Spanish?

Conversational Spanish Dialogues is a great book to improve your Spanish as it deals with issues people face in their everyday lives. It prepares you for real-life talks in different situations.

Why Can I Read And Understand Spanish But Not Speak It?

Because you probably haven’t practiced speaking by yourself. Reading and understanding Spanish is the first thing, but you also have to make an effort to speak as much as you make an effort to read. You won’t miraculously speak just by learning Spanish.

You need to practice that speaking muscle as well. So find a tutor online on iTalki (something I’ve been doing), and speak as much as you can.

How Quickly Can I Teach Myself Spanish?

1 year is a great time to learn Spanish by yourself. Dedicate at least 1 hour everyday and you can become fluent.

It also depends on which level you want to achieve, how much time you dedicate, and if you already know other Romance language, it might take you even less time.

WRAP-UP: 9 Great Spanish Books For Beginners

These are my favorite Spanish books, which I recommend to beginners. Start with the 101 Conversations, which will teach you basic vocabulary. Then, grab one with a story that sounds interesting to you and immerse yourself in the Spanish language even more. These books are a great source for understanding Spanish-Latino cultures, too.

If you have any questions or need help learning Spanish, contact me at info(at)voicesoftravel.com.

Happy Reading!