{"id":9951,"date":"2016-08-08T08:00:00","date_gmt":"2016-08-08T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/spanish\/?p=9951"},"modified":"2018-08-03T09:45:24","modified_gmt":"2018-08-03T13:45:24","slug":"5-telenovelas-that-were-way-better-in-spanish","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/spanish\/5-telenovelas-that-were-way-better-in-spanish\/","title":{"rendered":"5 Telenovelas That Were Way Better in Spanish"},"content":{"rendered":"

Latin American telenovelas are famous for their face-slapping and hay dios m\u00edo<\/em>-evoking dramatics, but they’re also the inspiration for many American and international hit series. For Spanish learners who love comedy, suspense, and yes, drama, give your listening comprehension and cultural fluency a tune-up with these Spanish-language originals.<\/p>\n

From Netflix originals to prime time hits, our Latino neighbors have been supplying the creative fodder for some of our entertainment obsessions for decades now.<\/p>\n

Novelas<\/em> aren’t all the forbidden love affairs and outrageous murder plots you see when you flip to Telemundo at 2 in the morning–actually, it’s a robust genre with diverse subgenres ranging from cheesy soap operas to dystopian narco-thrillers.<\/p>\n

Since gaining popularity in Mexico and Brazil in the 1950s, novelas latinoamericanas<\/em> have launched themselves onto the world stage, lighting up the ratings from the United States to Turkey to the Philippines. The most influential telenovelas in Latin America have begun and furthered public debates about urban violence, government corruption, family planning, homosexuality, and the extreme class divisions that still stratify much of Latin American society.<\/p>\n

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Image by Marcio Paes<\/a> via Flickr under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0<\/small><\/p><\/div>\n

For language learners especially, the original is where it’s at.\u00a0To strengthen your Spanish listening comprehension, build on your slang and colloquial vocabulary, and deepen the cultural understanding that’s crucial for truly understanding any language, skip the remakes and start on these five original telenovelas.<\/p>\n

1. La Reina del Sur<\/i><\/h2>\n

Since its premier on USA Network two months ago, “Queen of the South<\/a>” has drawn over a million viewers for each of its first six episodes, but that’s nothing next to the original. The Telemundo hit\u00a0La Reina del Sur\u00a0<\/em>is to date the American network’s second highest budget and number one\u00a0most successful narco-novela ever.<\/p>\n