Until recently, I never watched soap operas. Like many people, I have a need for immediate gratification, and so the thought of having to wait days or weeks for a story to progress is plainly annoying. In fact, my family refused to watch Lord of the Rings until the trilogy was completed and available on DVD. But, my mother does watch soap operas. And frankly, finding quality time with an aging parent gets a little harder given her limitations. (My mother turned 85 this past spring. She’s sharp as a tack, but physically limited.) Because traveling can be quite a chore with a wheelchair, she stays in — and loves to watch television, mostly in English. But, every weeknight she watches Dame Chocolate (“Give Me Chocolate”), a Spanish soap opera (“telenovela”) on Telemundo — and it is very good.
Although Spanish was my first language (I’m fluent in it and speak it every day), I don’t write it often and simply don’t think in Spanish. It’s also not easy to expand your vocabulary in any language if you only speak to the same few people about the same few things. But watching more Spanish television has really changed that — whether it’s a telenovela, a Spanish dub of Harry Potter or even Cliffhanger, or Spanish language films by Pedro Almodóvar or Guillermo del Toro. We recently watched Pan’s Labyrinth (“El Laberinto del Fauno”). Pan speaks in a strange dialect they still use in the village in Spain where my father was born. (It’s an unsettling movie, to say the least, but engrossing.)
What started as a way to spend time with my mother, however, has improved my voice-over skills. I provide English and Spanish voice-over services. The copy I get for Spanish voiceovers isn’t difficult and doesn’t tend to include Old World dialects. But a particular mindset expands my ability to better interpret the Spanish copy I get. Plus I verbalize a lot of what I hear. I’ll latch onto particular phrases, play with unfamiliar words until they come easily, and basically learn to make new sounds. Some phrasing in Spanish or English simply gives any mouth a workout; there really are muscles that need to stay conditioned for voice work.
So kicking back after dinner with a little Cuban coffee watching Dame Chocolate every day has actually expanded my vocabulary and improved my voice skills — not a bad bonus for something that was just a way to spend a little more time with my mother. Also, Carlos Ponce es candela!