This application may be used by English-speaking students of the Spanish language for listening and reading comprehension practice. It includes the audio narration in original Spanish language of the story "El Hechicero" by Juan Valera, a parallel English translation on a phrase level and the necessary software for synchronized playback and for user navigation and interaction capability. This method of reading that we call "multipedia", is a modern evolution of the traditional printed bilingual book and the traditional audio book, put together.

With a traditional bilingual book the original language text is placed on the left side page, the translation on the right side page and the students have to spend most of their time in locating the translation of unknown words. This results in a lot of mental energy spent for no good reason and can be very tiresome. With a traditional audio book the students have no visual input of what they are listening and this could result in gaps in their comprehension and inevitable frustration.

The Multipedia method brings together the traditional benefits of bilingual books and audio books. Furthermore, it greatly enhances these benefits by facilitating navigation and automatizing the reading process. The synchronized audio narration and the parallel English translation requires minimal effort to follow and even beginner students are able to listen, read and comprehend an original Spanish story.

Students of the Multipedia method can:
- Easily navigate anywhere through the chapters/paragraphs of the text.
- Tap any phrase to restart playback from it.
- Flick left or flick right the entire page to restart playback from the previous or the next paragraph.
- Tap anywhere in the empty part of the screen to pause playback in order to study the parallel translation.
- Listen repetitively the same paragraph in order to better assimilate the pronunciation of new words and phrases.

Reading a foreign book in the original takes more energy from the student than reading it in the translation. As with any kind of learning, new neuron connections have to be created in the process and this requires considerable mental effort. There is no such thing as painless language acquisition. The students of the Multipedia method spend their energy more effectively because the narration is synchronized and the translation is parallelized in a phrase level. Thus, reading becomes a continuous and repetitive mental recording of oral and written language patterns and of their associations to the ever inspiring emotional context that beautiful literature is capable of producing within us humans.

It has never been so easy to practice the listening and reading comprehension of a foreign language. And when the time comes for the students to practice their speaking, the Multipedia method is there to help as well. This is because when we speak in a foreign language we usually reproduce, in the present time context, pre-recorded phrases from our mental pool of oral language patterns. We believe that the students of the Multipedia method will have a good chance to develop a rich base of language patterns as long as they have enough Multipedia Book Titles at their disposal to use and study. Therefore this title is just the beginning. New titles will soon follow, built with the same high standards of beautiful audio narration and high-quality parallel English translation.

Enjoy the new era of language learning