Tell Your Heart to Beat Again in Spanish

Oh, you're just caput-over-heels in beloved with Spanish, aren't you?

Hearing the lyrics of a Spanish song sends chills downward your spine.

Even just walking past those Castilian brands at the supermarket gives you the tingles.

So, yous promised yourself to acquire this seductive language at whatsoever cost.

Time has passed and you're at present deep into your learning.

You lot've listened to the audiobooks, surfed the YouTube channels and interacted with native speakers at every possible opportunity.

Just you're wondering, "Is there something fun I can exercise to significantly boost my Spanish?"

Well, read on because yous're about to go into the exciting globe of telenovelas, and notice thirteen of the besttelenovelas to larn Spanish!

Download: This blog post is available equally a user-friendly and portable PDF that you tin take anywhere. Click here to go a copy. (Download)

What Practise Telenovelas Take to Offer?

Telenovelas deal with the roller coaster ride of life, and staple topics include family, marriage, politics and business concern.

The themes often revolve around the four Rs: romance, revenge, redemption and rivalry.

With telenovelas, annihilation is possible—the dead come back to life, a long-lost evil twin of a sudden appears and anybody tin can get amnesia. Even star-crossed lovers tin can turn out to be brother and sister.

Boom! Y'all've got a highly addictive plot and subplots with twists and turns that tin can glue yous to your seat for hours. (Yous've been warned.)

Many people think that telenovelasand lather operas are the aforementioned things, just they're really different in several aspects:

• Telenovelastake a airtight narrative, while soap operas are open. This simply means that whiletelenovelastake a specific story to tell with a beginning and an established end, soap operas have no particular goal or end, and they go along for as long equally they take viewers.
• Because of this open up vs closed narrative, telenovelastend to have a faster step than soap operas. What happens in a day in atelenovelacould easily take one whole week or even two in a lather opera.
• Equally a result, telenovelas concluding effectually 12-xviii months, while lather operas can run for years (sometimes decades!)
• Telenovelastake one main villain, the adversary who tries to destroy the main protagonist's life at all costs. Soap operas, on the other hand, accept and so many characters who come and go and so many intertwined lives that they need several villains.

  It's very common to have two or three villains at any given time in a soap opera. While one is trying to cheat on her wife, some other one is trying to rob a banking concern and a third 1 has infiltrated a group of friends and is turning them all confronting each other… merely to give you three examples.

• Finally, telenovelasare dramatic, over-the-top and flashy. Everything humanly possible tin can happen. A simple example: A man falls in honey with his maid, who turns out to exist his lost half-sister because the woman who was her married man's brother's lover got meaning, only to save her reputation, she left her kid in an orphanage. Are y'all lost however? Me too, only you get the gist.

  On the other manus, lather operas tend to be either realistic to the fullest (like "Greyness's Anatomy") or supernatural from beginning to stop, with magic, demons, ghosts, witches, werewolves and vampires all over the identify.

  Rest assured, you'll never see a werewolf in a telenovela (although some male characters are indeed hairy and sport a mustache that'due south bigger than their unabridged corn plantation).

A discussion you may accept also heard is novela.

If you look up this word in a dictionary, the first definition will always be "short novel" or "novella."

However, some expert dictionaries also include another definition: "soap opera."

We've seen thattelenovelasand lather operas are actually quite different, but it'due south true that the wordnovela is very commonly used to refer totelenovelas.

Equally a personal chestnut, I can tell you that in the region where I was born (Andalusia, Spain), everybody refers totelenovelasequallynovelas.

If you haven't heard the sentence"Ya empieza la novela"(Thetelenovelais starting), y'all oasis't actually felt what living with a Spanish family means.

Oh, and i terminal thing!Telenovelasare on after lunch in Spain, around 3:30 p.g., and fifty-fifty men are obsessed with them, something very few of them would fifty-fifty intendance to admit in public.

How to Acquire Castilian withTelenovelas

Telenovelas are and so bad they're good. No, they're great!

As a learner of Castilian, ane of the best tools you tin use to amend your language skills is a telenovela.

For starters, they permit you to practice the diversity of Spanish y'all want to learn.

There are so manytelenovelasavailable that you'd demand five lifetimes to watch them all, so exist picky and choose the ones that'll actually aid you study the accent you lot're trying to learn.

Believe information technology or non, telenovelasare also dandy conversation starters.

If two or more people are watching the sametelenovela, chances are they'll end up talking near it and wondering what'south going to happen next.

Finally,telenovelasare native content. This ways they're perfect for improving your Spanish vocabulary, grammar, rhythm and intonation, among other skills.

If we mix these iii reasons together and add a fleck of imagination, we can actually take advantage of watchingtelenovelas in several specific ways.

Hither are some ideas:

• Practice Spanish shadowing. Shadowing is one of the all-time ways to acquire Spanish and acquire a nifty native accent. Apply the telenovelasincluded in this mail to practise shadowing and your speaking skills volition skyrocket.
• Re-scout selected episodes. If there's an episode yous've enjoyed or i you didn't quite empathize, watch it over again. Write downward the words you lot don't recognize and create flashcards with them. Ameliorate yet, look up the word on FluentU'due south video and flashcard dictionary and acquire everything about it in a couple of clicks.
• Switch on the Spanish subtitles. At least at the starting time, always have the Spanish subtitles on. This volition be helpful if you get lost or don't understand what the characters are saying. Besides, your brain will exist getting double the input (through your ears and through your eyes), so you'll really be practicing two language skills at once.
• Expect for chatrooms, forums and subreddits devoted to telenovelas. Obviously, opt for ones that are in Spanish. Read the conversations and, when you're ready, participate in them. Enquire questions, come up with theories, endeavor to solve plot holes… Every bit long every bit you do information technology in Spanish, you'll be learning!
• If you like any of the actors or actresses, look them up online. Telenovela actors are large public figures in their countries, so y'all're bound to detect a lot of data virtually them.
• Have fun. At the end of the mean solar day,telenovelasare a fun ride in themselves. They'll accept y'all glued to your seat, biting your nails and shouting"¡Mentirosa!"(Liar!) and"¡Dile que la amas, Carlos Javier!" (Tell her you beloved her, Carlos Javier!) to your TV screen every five minutes, so while you're at it, do it in Spanish and immerse yourself in the fulltelenovelaexperience.
• Apply FluentU. If you lot dearest learning with videos, y'all'll honey FluentU.

So, how practice you can use FluentU to learn Spanish with telenovelas?

Let'due south take a look at the trailer of the telenovela"Santa Diabla"(Broken Angel), which you lot can watch on FluentU:

When you play a FluentU video, the get-go matter you'll notice is its set of contextual subtitles, which will tell you what that word means in the context of the video you lot're watching.

By hovering your mouse over whatever word, you'll get some basic grammer info and the appropriate translation of the word:

So, by merely moving your mouse, you already know that the wordintensomeans "intense," and that it'southward a masculine singular adjective.

If you click on the word, an interactive flashcard will popular upwards. The flashcard volition tell you everything you need to know about your word, from its pronunciation and translation to sample sentences and even videos where the word appears. Yous can also salvage the flashcards you want to written report more to a deck.

Once y'all've finished watching the video, you can test your knowledge with a quiz.

Check out other telenovela-related videos like "Netflix's 'The Firm of Flowers': Paulina and Julián Can't Get Forth" or "Stand-upwardly One-act: Modern Mothers-in-law" (which mentions "Betty la Fea").

Comport in mind the features I'k talking about are only bachelor after you lot log in to your FluentU account, then if you still don't have one, subscribe to become a gratis trial to enjoy FluentU and all its premium features completely free of charge for a period of time.

Now that you're ready for the big leagues, let's get some dramatic learning underway!

The 13 All-time Telenovelas for Learning Spanish on Your Own

All in all, in terms of learning Spanish, at that place'south zilch more effective, more engaging and more culturally nuanced. So if you lot're looking to brand your Spanish lessons come up alive, look no further.

Here are 13 telenovelas that are your tickets to learning Castilian with a ton of dramatic scenes and cliffhangers galore.

Watch at your own risk!

1. "María la del Barrio" ("María of the Neighborhood")

Having aired in 180 countries, this is i of the about popular telenovelas to hit the Television receiver screen.

Starring the effervescent Thalía (of "Marimar," "María Mercedes" and "Rosalinda" fame), the show tells the story of a immature, impulsive scavenger who'south welcomed inside the mansion of a wealthy family and promptly falls in love with i of the sons (Fernando Colunga as Luis Fernando) of her benefactor.

Just with any Thalía show, or any telenovela for that affair, love never comes easy for ii star-crossed lovers.

A scheming, back-stabbing and really crazy Soraya, is simply around the corner to foil any attempts at happiness fabricated by our favorite duo.

Remember what I said virtually telenovelas?Anything is possible.

"María la del Barrio" takes the cake, featuring faked deaths, staged pregnancies, mistaken identities, sly gossip, stints in prison and the asylum, rags-to-riches-to-rags-again plot twists, amnesia, adoption and blood brother and sister dating.

With "María la del Barrio," you're not just learning the language, y'all're also learning it with the context and strength of passion, despair, revenge and hope.

Now yous'll understand why they say that Castilian is passion put into words.

This series is bachelor to watch on Univision NOW with a monthly subscription, which might be worth your cash if y'all programme on watching even more Spanish TV shows andtelenovelas!

2."La Mentira" ("The Lie")

Demetrio, returning from a stint in Europe, comes domicile to his family's tequila plantation in United mexican states where he discovers that his blood brother, Ricardo, has committed suicide.

Amidst his blood brother's possessions, he finds a alphabetic character from a mysterious adult female detailing how she never really loved Ricardo and that she's getting married to someone else, how she aborted their child and how she spent all his coin. He realizes that she was the crusade of his death.

In improver to the letter, he also finds a V-shaped broach which he thinks belongs to the very woman who collection his brother to finish his life.

From that very moment, Demetrio resolves to avenge his brother's death.

The mission brings him to the firm of the Fernández-Negrete family—the owners of one of the nearly illustrious banks in Mexico—where he meets the cousins named Virginia and Veronica. (Remember the V-shaped broach? He's getting warm.)

Virginia is kind-hearted and innocent, while Veronica is confident and somewhat sneaky. Through a serial of incidents, Demetrio is led to believe that it'due south Veronica that he'southward been looking for. He then puts into motion plans for making her life extra-miserable, avenging his brother'south expiry.

Demetrio is successful and exacts revenge for his brother. The end.

Whoa, await a minute! Y'all didn't think it'd be that easy, do you? I hateful, haven't you seen whatsoever telenovelas earlier?

Go ahead, take a look and find out for yourself what actually happens to Demetrio and Veronica.

You lot'll exist left screaming Spanish words and phrases towards your computer monitor. (And that'due south how you'll acquire Spanish along the manner.)

three. "Te sigo amando" ("I Still Love Yous")

"Te sigo amando" is a story of forbidden honey. (Surprise, surprise!)

It stars Claudia Ramírez as Yulissa Torres-Quintero—a beautiful and innocent young lady forced to marry a rich landowner considering of her family unit'southward debts.

On the day of their hymeneals, Ignacio Aguirre, the rich husband, suffers an accident that leaves him unable to consummate the marriage. His sad condition leaves him a biting and difficult man.

This story wouldn't be complete without a handsome doctor to complete the dearest triangle.

Physician Luis Ángel Zaldívar, a renowned physician, goes on a business firm call that will change his life forever. The first time he sees Claudia, sparks about engulf the room.

Claudia is just as well helpless from falling in love with the dashing medico. The two get into an amorous relationship which results in a pregnancy.

What fate awaits Claudia and her baby? Why don't nosotros ask Ignacio Aguirre and his mustache, which has a starring role in almost all of his scenes?

4. "Rebelde Way" ("Rebel's Fashion")

Yous up for some Argentinian teen telenovela time? I give you "Rebelde Way"—a story near the lives of teenagers hailing from Argentina'south wealthiest families.

The setting is the Elite Way School, a private boarding school that's witness to the youthful delinquencies of Marizza, Mía, Pablo and Manuel.

The four share a passion for music and, in spite of their initial differences, they determine to form the band called "Erreway."

And would y'all believe information technology, there's actually a band chosen Erreway whose members are the very same actors and actresses in the telenovela. In fact, the bodily band has released several platinum records and has toured Latin America, Europe and Israel.

The accompanying telenovela was so successful that it spurred a number of international remakes, the most popular of which is United mexican states'south "Rebelde."

Don't be too swayed past the telenovela's charismatic and highly relatable characters. Call back, you're doing this to learn a language, so be on the lookout for Spanish language cognates. (Cognates are words in unlike languages that take practically the same pronunciation, spelling or etymology. Examples in English and Spanish are abundance —abundancia and cool — absurdo)

5. "Corazón salvaje" ("Wild Center")

"Corazón salvaje," which won Best Telenovela of the Twelvemonth in 1994, is the story of gruff Juan del Diablo, who grew up fatherless on the streets of San Pedro. It turns out that he'south actually the love child of wealthy landowner Francisco Alcázar.

Equally is the tradition of telenovelas, this is a journeying of romance and rivalries, of deception and broken promises. But I included this bear witness on the listing non for these.

"Corazón salvaje" is gear up in the 1900s. As such, the characters speak in a kind of Spanish reminiscent of that era. The language is slightly elevated, subtly majestic.

Though their costumes might prove a little bit distracting, once you lot get over it, "Corazón salvaje" is expert practice for language learners who aim for a deeper mastery of Spanish.

6. "Catalina y Sebastián" ("Catalina and Sebastián")

Permit's say yous're a very rich rancher and you desire to know if a woman married you for dear or for money. What would yous practice?

You lot'll pose every bit a poor workman, right? If she even so loves you in spite of that, then you know she's not interested in the cha-ching.

Sebastián, the male person protagonist, does more than that. He presents himself as a rich rancher. Then, after the nuptials, he makes it look like he was only a poor workman who duped his bride into marrying him. (Sebastián, in actuality, has mucho dinero.)

When he discovers that Catalina simply married him to exist in the lap of luxury, he plots revenge past refusing to divorce her and making her alive in daily poverty.

Unfortunately or fortunately, through their interactions every bit hubby and wife, Catalina starts to accept real feelings for him.

Now, though, she'southward in too deep. Not only does her husband Sebastián non trust her, but another man is holding Sebastián'southward money and ranch earnest unless Catalina agrees to marry him, instead. How far will Catalina go to aid Sebastián? Is money worth more than beloved?

7. "La Reina del Sur" ("The Queen of the Southward")

This powerhouse drama chronicles the rapid rise of underworld queen Teresa Mendoza, a Mexican diva who uses her womanly wits to take over Spain's illegal drug manufacture.

In her dwelling house country, her thug of a beau gets wasted and she goes on the lam. As an expat, she juggles international intrigue, flings with sexy lowlifes and rules her burgeoning drug empire without ever missing a beat. And she does information technology all in high heels.

Sure, Mexican and Spanish accents tin pose problems for newcomers to the Spanish language—merely no matter what your level of Spanish is, y'all'll observe yourself adjusting quickly to these regional sounds.

The story is primarily action-driven, and so you'll understand what'south going on thanks to the potent visual element of the show.

With some of the highest production costs of any telenovela,you'll see why so many people have become positively engrossed in Teresa'due south tale.

8."Pasión de Gavilanes"("Hidden Passion," lit. Passion of Hawks)

"Pasión de Gavilanes"is probably i of the most popular Colombiantelenovelas of the past twenty years.

It begins with a tragic bang: A young woman falls in dearest with a rich older homo, the man dies in a equus caballus blow and the woman, who'due south just constitute out she's pregnant, commits suicide.

At this point, the vi main characters of the story announced.

On the one manus, you have the three handsome-as-gods Reyes brothers. They're the young woman's brothers, and although they're proficient and humble, they make up one's mind to seek revenge for the death of their sister. Drama!

On the other paw, yous have the 3 cute-every bit-goddesses Elizondo sisters, who are the tardily rich man's daughters.

The Reyes brothers decide they're going to make the Elizondo sisters fall in love with them, then break their hearts and leave them.

But there'southward a trouble the Reyes brothers didn't foresee: They fall in love with the three sisters. Imagine what would happen if the 3 sisters found out about the revenge plan!

Well, y'all don't have to imagine. Just picket this amazingtelenovela and you'll meet for yourself.

9."Reina de Corazones"("Queen of Hearts")

"Reina de Corazones" is a rollercoaster of emotions from the first.

It takes place in Las Vegas, and it tells the story of Reina.

Picture this: Reina, a beautiful, humble woman, falls in love with a handsome womanizer (Nicolás), who has a girlfriend (Camila).

Fortunately for Reina, it's love at first sight—so powerful that they make up one's mind to get married right away. Not and then fortunate for shunned ex-girlfriend Camila, who's so distraught at beingness dumped that she kills herself.

Skip ahead to the wedding day. Camila's male parent, Víctor, quite undersandably wants Nicolás dead.

Víctor is a bad human being, a gem trafficker with terrorist connections and power over a lot of people. His men, plain, follow his orders and get looking for Nicolás, who gets shot.

Meanwhile, Reina waits impatiently for Nicolás to come up to the wedding anniversary, but he never does because, well, he'due south decorated dying.

Fast-forrad to Reina having an accident and forgetting the past eight years of her life. Await, what? Yes, that's right! You were warned that telenovelas are a wild ride.

Reina is at present married to Víctor and has a daughter, all of which is news to her. And she doesn't fifty-fifty call back beingness in love with Nicolás!

Just when you lot thought it couldn't get any stranger, enter Javier, who looks suspiciously like to Nicolás.

I tin't tell you anything else without spoiling the story, but trust me, yous're in for a lot of unexpected twists. Requite it a watch!

10."La Usurpadora"("Deceptions," lit. The Usurper)

"La Usurpadora" is 1 of my best favorite telenovelas, and if you watch information technology, y'all'll empathise why.

Information technology tells the story of Paola and Paulina, twin sisters who were separated at nascency.

Paulina is a skillful, apprehensive adult female whose fiancé has a mistress, while Paola is a vain woman married to a rich man (Carlos Daniel) who she doesn't dear.

One day, Paola's and Paulina's paths cantankerous. They don't know they're twin sisters, merely since they're so strikingly similar, physically, Paola creates a plan in which Paulina is going to substitute her at abode for a yr while she goes to Monaco with her lover.

For reasons I don't desire to tell you lot, Paulina accepts.

When she arrives at Paola'due south identify, the situation is a real mess: an unloving husband, a neglected child, a hating sister-in-law, several lovers… Paulina's life becomes a turmoil she's barely able to handle, while her twin sister is off having fun who knows where.

Time goes by. Paulina manages to convince everyone she's the same person merely she's changed. At this point, Paola decides to go dorsum to her identify, and chaos ensues. There are further cases of mistaken identity, a blossoming dearest that's not to be, a (failed) endeavor to feign inability in a wheelchair… And so, so much more!

If you want to detect out how this ends, you lot'll have to grab some popcorn and picket it.

"La Usurpadora" is the quintessence of what a real telenovelais, and I tin't recommend it enough.

xi."La Reina del Catamenia"("The Queen of Catamenia")

If y'all dear the drama that comes with telenovelas and the hypnotizing rhythm of reggaeton, then you're going to love "La Reina del Flow."

It's difficult to tell you much about this bear witness without giving away any spoilers, so I'm going to be every bit brief and cryptic as possible.

Yeimy Montoya is a 16-year-old Colombian teenager who writes reggaeton lyrics she keeps subconscious in a secret notebook. Her parents own a modest baker, but they get killed because they refuse to pay a "protection bribe" to the local narco.

Soon afterward that, she becomes part of her high-school reggaeton group and, after being circulate on the local radio, they all get to go to New York City to meet a music producer. Unfortunately, tragedy strikes in New York, and Yeimy gets wrongfully sentenced to 25 years in prison house.

While she'south in prison trying to cope with her new reality, someone finds her underground notebook and uses her lyrics to become a famous reggaeton artist. This person goes on to create a successful production studio cheers to Yeimy'southward lyrics.

When she's released from prison 17 years later, an attempt is made on Yeimy'south life.

Yet, she survives and, presumed expressionless, decides to render to Colombia and seek revenge for everything that's happened to her and her family.

That's all I can tell yous. Lookout man the prove to find out what happens adjacent!

12."La Casa de las Flores"("The Business firm of Flowers")

Even though"La Casa de las Flores"is a Netflix series, you'll empathise in a 2nd why I've decided to add it to this list.

In instance you haven't heard, at that place's a kind of new genre called "millennial telenovela." Also sometimes chosen a "modernistictelenovela," millennial telenovelasare basicallytelenovelascreated for millennials. I know, shocking.

A millennial telenovela features younger characters, positive LGBTQ+ representation and other aspects that can appeal to a younger audience. All in all, these shows pretend to be a satirical representation of the classical telenovelawhile keeping its core traits, i.eastward. the four Rs: romance, revenge, redemption and rivalry.

"La Casa de las Flores"is a perfect instance of the millennial telenovela. It shows the life of a wealthy Mexican family, the de la Mora family, who owns a blossom shop.

The bear witness starts in a very promising way: It's the family patriarch Ernesto de la Mora's birthday. In typical wealthy family fashion, the altogether party is huge and the number of guests is close to infinity.

During this party, Ernesto's mistress hangs herself. (Yes, nosotros're just minutes into the serial and we already have a dead mistress. Now tell me this isn't a telenovela.)

What follows next is a wonderful spider web of chaos.

Ernesto gets sent to prison for fraud. His son Julián comes out as bisexual. His daughter almost gives Virginia, the matriarch, a heart attack by revealing she owns a cabaret with the same name as the floristry shop (The Business firm of Flowers, hence the name of the show). Another daughter is hiding a cloak-and-dagger African-American fiancé. Virginia's ex-husband, who's now a woman, is asked to stand for Ernesto as his lawyer. The family's accountant is secretly Julián'due south boyfriend.

As you lot tin meet, information technology'southward a hot mess yous shouldn't be missing!

I love how the serial manages to proceed thetelenovelatemper while subverting its most intrinsic stereotypes in a tragicomic way. And then if you bask black humour and dramedies, "La Casa de las Flores" will exist your next favorite testify.

xiii. "Yo Soy Betty, la Fea"("Ugly Betty," lit. I Am Betty, the Ugly Ane)

Capping off this listing is Betty—an unassuming simply extraordinarily well-known global miracle.

Later on watching "Ugly Betty" in high school and college, some friends of mine who were learning Spanish immediately gravitated to this familiar story. You've just gotta honey watching Betty's journey from homely to fabulous, an aspect that'due south explored far more in the original series than the American remake.

The OG Betty is also a scrap more hardcore—she's surrounded by scandals that would shock and horrify America Ferrera'south Betty—and she hits us with unexpected doses of realism at every turn.

The resolutions of this Betty's corporate climbing and relationship endeavors tend to be anything only fairy-tale perfect. On the bright side, this all balances out with tons of goofy, cheeseball humor and catty (but silly) "can yous believe she wore that?" comments.

The sing-song Colombian accents, forth with regional slangs, may toss you a curveball. However, it'southward relatively similar to many other Latin American accents, and y'all'll detect it easier to understand the more you lookout.

And that, my friends, is learning Spanish through telenovelas.

Information technology'due south an exciting, engaging and addicting venture. You'll spend endless hours reading subtitles, listening to pronunciations and hunting for words rambled carelessly by native speakers.

But if you're lucky, y'all'll larn not simply the linguistic communication and the culture—you'll learn a little something about dear, and a little something almost life.

And as always, stay curious, my friends, and happy watching!

---

Francisco J. Vare loves teaching and writing about grammar. He's a proud language nerd, and you'll normally find him learning languages, teaching students or reading. He'due south been writing for FluentU for many years and is one of their staff writers.

Download: This blog post is available as a user-friendly and portable PDF that you lot can take anywhere. Click here to get a copy. (Download)

Tell Your Heart to Beat Again in Spanish

Source: https://www.fluentu.com/blog/spanish/best-telenovelas-for-learning-spanish/

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