The Secret Garden for English learners: level, words and how to read it
Frances Hodgson Burnett’s 1911 novel about a lonely girl and a locked garden is gentle, warm and written in clear, simple English. Here is how difficult it is, what to do with the Yorkshire dialect and which words to know.
- Author
- Frances Hodgson Burnett
- Published
- 1911
- Level
- B1–B2
- Words
- 81,241
- Chapters
- 27
- Reading time
- ≈ 9 h
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What the book is about
Mary Lennox is a spoilt, sour ten-year-old who has grown up in India almost without anyone loving her. When her parents die, she is sent to her uncle’s huge, gloomy house on the Yorkshire moors, where nobody pays her much attention. Then she hears about a garden that has been locked for ten years, and a robin shows her where the key is buried.
Bringing the garden back to life changes everything: Mary makes friends with Dickon, a boy who can tame any animal, and discovers a secret inside the house too: her cousin Colin, an invalid who has been hidden away and is sure he will die young.
Themes
- Healing. Fresh air, work and friendship cure what doctors could not.
- Nature. The garden waking up in spring mirrors the children waking up inside.
- Loneliness and friendship. Two neglected, unpleasant children learn to care about someone else.
- Positive thinking. Burnett believed that thoughts can make you ill or well, and the book says so openly.
How hard is The Secret Garden to read in English?
How many unknown words will you meet? With a vocabulary of about 2,000 words, roughly 13 in every hundred, since those words cover 86.8% of the text. With 5,000 words it is about 8 in a hundred, with 10,000 about 4. Character names are not counted.
Measured by vocabulary alone, the book is B2: that is the level at which almost every word is already familiar (why 98% matters). Tap-to-translate covers the rest, so you can start at B1–B2. It is slightly harder than The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes and slightly easier than Robinson Crusoe.
What is hard: Martha, Dickon and old Ben Weatherstaff speak broad Yorkshire dialect (nowt for “nothing”, tha for “you”, dropped endings like nothin’), and there are many words for plants and gardening. What helps: the narration is clear and calm, the vocabulary is familiar (96% of the text is covered by the 10,000 most common words) and the story is easy to follow.
Our take: B1–B2 with tap-to-translate (B2 by vocabulary). A lovely, gentle book for your first long novel in English; the dialect looks scary at first but you get used to it in a few chapters.
Words to know before you start
The book’s own vocabulary: frequent in this text, much less common elsewhere. Ten minutes with this list makes the opening chapters smoother.
| Word | Meaning | Times in the book |
|---|---|---|
| moor | open wild land covered with grass and heather | 93 |
| inquired | asked | 24 |
| gazed | looked for a long time | 15 |
| nowt | nothing (Yorkshire dialect) | 12 |
| hysterics | a fit of uncontrolled crying or screaming | 12 |
| snowdrops | small white flowers of early spring | 9 |
| trowel | a small garden spade | 9 |
| crocuses | small spring flowers, purple, yellow or white | 8 |
| fretful | unhappy and complaining | 8 |
| shrubbery | an area planted with bushes | 8 |
How to read it in the original
- Read the dialect aloud. Tha’rt is “you are”, th’ is “the”; the words become clear when you hear them.
- Do not learn the dialect as standard English. Save words like nowt as Yorkshire dialect so you do not use them by mistake.
- Keep a little plant list. Snowdrops, crocuses, daffodils: names come back again and again as the garden grows.
- Read a chapter a day. About 3,000 words: the whole book in four weeks.
The first line
When Mary Lennox was sent to Misselthwaite Manor to live with her uncle everybody said she was the most disagreeable-looking child ever seen.
Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Secret Gardenwas sentwas made to gophrase in context
Tap a highlighted word
A rare opening: the heroine is introduced as unpleasant, not charming. Part of the pleasure of the book is watching that sentence stop being true.
Frequently asked questions
Is The Secret Garden hard to read in English?
Not very. The narration is simple and the vocabulary familiar, about B2 by vocabulary, B1–B2 with tap-to-translate. The only real difficulty is the Yorkshire dialect in some characters’ speech, which you get used to quickly.
What English level do I need for The Secret Garden?
B1–B2 with tap-to-translate. By vocabulary alone the book is B2. If it feels too hard, start with The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, which is a little easier.
