Telenovelas: Alborada
In the past six months or so, when my mother-in-law visits, I get totally pulled into whatever telenovela she’s watching at the time. For the uninitiated, telenovelas are Spanish speaking and the ultimate in soap opera experience. Our English speaking counterparts have nothing on the drama of the telenovela and even better, the telenovelas I’ve watched only run for a set number of episodes so you get to learn about brand new characters every few months or so. Frankly, I just think they blow soap operas like All My Children out of the water.
You see, my own mom is a soap opera junkie and so I’ve watched a few. But I never liked them so I teased her for years about watching the US soap opera scene. But now I know: if she spoke Spanish, she would give up those blazé stores of comas and drug addictions for the steamy story of Epólita on Alborada - the telenovela I’m currently watching with my mother-in-law. I mean, how can you resist a story that has the heroine married to a gay guy living in Panama while she’s living in Mexico with the man who fathered her child secretly. Yeah, well. You’ve really got to watch it to get it all in…
Another great thing about telenovelas is that I have a built in rationalization for watching. I tell people who ask why I watch them that telenovelas improve my Spanish comprehension. I mean, I already learned “Where is the bathroom?” and “My name is ____.” Now I can learn more important, and frankly more fun, phrases like “I slept with him but didn’t who he was because my evil mother-in-law tricked me into thinking he was my husband.” Something I’ve always wanted to learn to say.
Another beauty of the telenovela is that it allows me to spend time with my mother-in-law without having to talk about the kids or her son or my family or any of the other mundane family topics. Instead she catches me up on who loves who and who is whose father and who’s bad and who’s good and who is just dumb. I just love to hear her talk about it as if it’s a puzzle to be figured out. I ask questions. Have her translate when I need it. Laugh. A lot. I even love it when she admits she doesn’t understand what they’re talking about or when we had to look the title up in the Spanish dictionary because we knew alba was dawn but what the hell is alborada*?
So next time you’re looking to take your soap opera viewing up a notch or increase your Spanish comprehension or, even better, bond with your mother-in-law, may I suggest a good telenovela? It’s good for the soul. Or at least the vocabulary.
*According to the dictionaries on elmundo.es it means “tiempo de amanacer” or “time to wake up” or, my own poetic interpretation, “awakening.”
Want more info on Alborada? I’d suggest this WONDERFUL summary blog:
Pratie’s Place: Alborada - telenovela recap
or the official site, for those of you who speak Spanish:
Official Univision’s Alborada Site