There's more to Spanish than conjugations

My freshman year I worked with a girl named Ansley who was a senior majoring in Spanish. I asked her one day why she decided to major in that and she said it wasn't just the love of the language, but the love of the culture. I could never quite understand what she meant by that until I started taking this class. Through studying the ins and outs of telenovelas, the Spanish culture has really come alive for me. I tell all of my roommates that after graduation, I want to move to Venezuela for two years and become immersed in their way of life, and of course, their obsession with telenovelas.

When I first signed up for this class, I have to admit I was hesitant. Not the topic of course, the idea of studying "Spanish soap operas" was very exciting to me, but the idea that I was going to be sitting through another SPAN 3030 class where it's all about the papers and group work and nitty gritty that was so hard for me to enjoy. Now that I’m in a class that looks past all of that, I am able to view the Spanish language in a whole new light and that connection is through the telenovela.

Dr. A has so much knowledge to offer on the subject that I find myself wanting more and more. I never knew that a telenovela only lasted 120 episodes; I never knew they were aired in primetime, and I never knew that people in Hispanic countries around the world spend hours and hours in front of their televisions watching their favorite ones.

One of the articles we had to read last week had a quote at the end that stated, “In a world that seeks loyalty of viewers, there is almost no greater loyalty-generating content than daily melodramas like the Telenovela”. I am so excited about experiencing this loyalty first hand. I had the absolute hardest time deciding on which telenovela to watch because I wanted to watch them all.

My goal is to watch the one I chose and really try to decipher the cultural aspects beyond the melodrama. I want to learn as much as I can about how they work and how they play such a vital role in Hispanic societies. I want to experience this love of culture that Ansley spoke of so I can take my knowledge of Spanish to the next level.