Stories for beginner-level students, equivalent to CEFR A1-A2.
‘Can you replace it this time?’ said Alex. ‘I know you did it last time, but I’m so tired.’
‘I didn’t do it last time,’ said Kayla.
‘Huh?’ said Alex. ‘You did! Last time, I went and looked under the pillow, but the tooth had already been replaced.’
‘I’m telling you, I didn’t do it!’ said Kayla.
‘I don’t understand,’ said Alex. ‘If I didn’t do it, and you didn’t do it, then who did? The Tooth Fairy?’
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One day, Aldar was riding through a field. He was wearing his cheap coat full of holes, and he was very cold. His hands and feet hurt, and his nose was blue. He shivered and shivered.
He wanted to find a yurt. In the yurt it would be warm and comfortable. But the wind was blowing loud and strong, and he only saw grass and ice. He saw no yurts and no fires. And the wind was trying to blow his ears off!
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Diana was surprised. ‘You don’t make resolutions? But you’re the most serious person I know! You go to the gym, and cook healthy food, and read books… How do you do all that without New Year’s resolutions?’
Minerva drank some wine. ‘Let me ask you something. How much are you planning on drinking tonight?’
Diana frowned. ‘You plan how much you’re going to drink?’
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Niamh’s father was afraid of many things. He thought that someone might try to kill him so that they could be king. He thought that someone would run faster than him in the next game. But he had a druid who could see the future, so he asked him to see the future.
‘Nobody will kill you, my king. And only one person would run faster than you: your son-in-law. So if your daughter never gets married, you will not have a son-in-law, and you can be king forever.’
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‘Why do you have a donkey, but you don’t ride it? Donkeys should be ridden.’
So the man said to his son, ‘Get on the donkey and ride it.’
They kept on going. A few hours later, a group of old women walked past.
‘Look at that lazy young boy,’ said one of the women. ‘Shame on him! He makes his father walk while he rides. His father should ride on the horse.’
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Once there were two brothers. One brother was a poor farmer. He worked in the fields, and when the weather was bad, he had no food. But he was kind and worked a lot. The other brother was a rich man who worked on a ship. He was not kind, and he often cheated people. In this time, there was no salt in the sea, so he travelled to other countries to get salt. He brought the salt back, and the King paid him lots of money.
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Once, there was a woman called Inmaculada. Her friends called her Inma. She lived in a village in Mexico. Inmaculada was indigenous, and her mother and father died when she was very young. She was poor, and she washed clothes for other people in the village. She wanted to leave the village and travel the world, but she thought it would never happen.
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Once there was a young boy called Lyman. He worked in the field and looked after the sheep. He was a shepherd. His father was a shepherd, and his grandfather was a shepherd and his grandfather’s father was a shepherd. Everyone told Lyman, ‘One day, you will be a great shepherd.’ But Lyman didn’t want to be a shepherd. He wanted to be a hunter. Hunters fought wolves, and they were big and strong. Shepherds weren’t big and strong.
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