A year of catch up.

Watching Despierta America is still difficult. I've stopped using the subtitles altogether.  I can't seem to find a soap that I like as much as I did with Una Familia Con Suerte. I like La Rosa de Guadelupe a lot. It's geared towards family lessons so a variety of story lines come up and with completely different characters each time.

More Scambling and Collar Giving

When the shows start to come close to their endings, not only to the charaters scramble, but the scenes scramble as if the writers already started to work for another show. I keep noticing large skips in travel and location. I guess it's a good sign that I'm picking up more of the language but it's certainly not making it easy.

The characters also start throwing gifts at each other left and right trying to win hearts and settle arguments.

Did you know that the word for necklace is collar? When someone gets a necklace as a gift they talk about how much they like their collar. Me gusta muchisma mi collar nueva! I just keep waiting for them to say back commands to roll over or speak. They normally follow it with te amo or something lovey dovey.

The Upcoming Death of Una Familia Con Suerte

Whenever the end of a telenovela comes near it seems like the characters are ants that just got their castle smashed by bored little Timmy. He thought that the soap opera was going on for too long. You also notice that a lot of the extra characters along the journey of the plot disappear because little Timmy also gets out his magnifying glass.

I need to plan out my mourning process. I'm thinking a box of tissues, a salted margarita and a Taco Cabana dinner with the chips and queso. All are invited.

Good morning, Latino Texas!

The morning show of Univision. Two gorgeous women and one attainable looking man who can sing are the hosts. They go over interviews, upcoming events and most importantly birthdays! I guess I watch it at exactly the same time each morning because they are always putting on goofy hats and they dance around in a conga line. Sometimes they have random performers joining in. So, sometimes they will be dancing and you'll notice someone spinning plates and someone else swishing her skirts in colorful waves. But then you'll see a little person in chicken suit start to run around the whole group and it will become too creepy. I turn it to HGTV when that happens just for a normal start to the day if you call shopping for $500,000 dollar homes to buy or using the same budget to fix up their kitchen "normal".

Dora Has Never Been Better

Don't let anyone catch you doing this, but morning cartoons are so much fun when you can't understand a word of it. You know how many times Dora awkwardly repeats herself and then stares at you? Then she does it one more time because she didn't believe you? Well, it actually makes sense when she wants you to speak in another language. If you watch her on Univision, the whole script is in Spanish with a tiny bit of English. Just perfect for our purposes. Pretend you're five and have her show in the background while you're doing chores.

You'll know when you're supposed to say something because of the dragging pauses. She doesn't judge you if you say the wrong word. She just pretends that you said the right word and moves on to save the day with her backpack and monkey friend.

How to Test Your Level of Fluency

Delisioso-This is a cooking show and I've found it to be a wonderful tool. With any cooking show if you think about it, someone is teaching someone else very clearly how to correctly cook a dish. They repeat themselves, they only talk about food and how it's prepared. You also see everything that they're talking about. For example, when she's talking about potatoes, you hear her say "papas" over and over again while she's holding papas.

I'm going to try testing myself by writing down notes and trying one of the dishes. I'll know when I'm fluent when I get an edible meal. That's how you access yourself when you're going through my Univision fluency program. I just made it up, but you can tell yourself it's official.

Nuestra Belleza Latina- Our Beautiful/Lovely Latina

This show is a mutt mix between The Voice, American Idol, America's Got Talent and

America's Next Top Model. Everyone's American whether it's North or South. 

The "challenges" are good for study practice because it's usually something about them doing some improv reporting on a certain theme or they are acting a telenovela clip out but they all have different scenes and characters. Each week the girls compete in a variety of next top model competitions and runway catwalks in bikinis and new fashion.

My favorite competitor got voted off already. I think her name was Ivanna. She was the only blonde so she stood out. She was pale without a tan and I always root for a girl who doesn't want a good dose of skin cancer later on. There are three judges. There is a Simon, but there isn't a drugged up Paula. I still haven't quite figured out how they do the rankings and scores.

I also really like it because I can easily pick out  different accents from around Latin America. The hostess of the show is the constant when it comes to that because like news casters they do not want to use any particular accent. They clear up their social accents to speak to all of Latin America. I would
love to end up sounding like her one day. She says a lot of "Mire" and "Lo
siento." (To loser contestants.) Llantos-Means Sobbing They do that a too.
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