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The Telenovela Method: How to Learn Spanish Using TV, Movies, Books, Comics, And More
After failing to learn a new language on five separate occasions, I taught myself to speak Spanish like a native in just six months by watching movies and TV shows, listening to music, and reading books and comics like Harry Potter and Garfield.
This simple, easy-to-learn technique, that even the most linguistically-challenged can master literally overnight, is used by many of the most respected and skilled polyglots and language teachers in the world, and it’s never really been laid out, explained, and demonstrated in full, point-by-point, step-by-step detail until now.
When characters in a movie or TV show are speaking the dialogue, unless it’s set in a previous period like the 1800s or something, they speak normal, everyday language. So if you wanted to learn Spanish, the type of normal everyday Spanish that native speakers use every day, aka “conversational Spanish”…
Don’t you think that Spanish-language TV shows, movies, music, and books might be a good source to learn from…if only you knew how?
Not only that, but it would be fun, wouldn’t it? Far better than learning the language from some boring, dry textbook or workbook that, even worse, is teaching outdated, formal, “non-conversational” Spanish (look at the dialogue in one sometime: do people actually talk like that? No).
The basic technique is obvious: consume popular Spanish-language media and try to learn what they're saying by looking up what you don't understand. Sure. But the issue is twofold:
1) The problems you will inevitably run into (how do I apply what I've learned? how do I ensure I'm not misunderstanding the meaning and thereby learning something incorrect? where do I look things up? what if it's not in the dictionary and Google Translate isn't cutting it? etc.), and...
2) How do we do things as efficiently as possible? If you're a beginner you're going to have to sort out how to do this all on your own, how to solve any problems you might run into on your own, while probably doing many things less effectively and slower than is necessary. I've already learned all this stuff the hard way, I've made many of the mistakes you would if you went this alone, let me just save you a ton of time, trouble, and possibly money by teaching you what I already know from experience.
Has this basic technique been used for centuries by language students and teachers alike? Yes, there are records dating back to the 18th century of language teachers using popular media in the language they're teaching to help their students learn it. I'm not claiming to have invented it. What I've done here is, after having used and refined the technique myself for several years, distilled it down to a system that's easy to learn, and which is taught in a format that's organized, easy to understand, and which takes advantage of all the latest technology, such as the all the various resources available on the internet now.
This simple, easy-to-learn technique, that even the most linguistically-challenged can master literally overnight, is used by many of the most respected and skilled polyglots and language teachers in the world, and it’s never really been laid out, explained, and demonstrated in full, point-by-point, step-by-step detail until now.
When characters in a movie or TV show are speaking the dialogue, unless it’s set in a previous period like the 1800s or something, they speak normal, everyday language. So if you wanted to learn Spanish, the type of normal everyday Spanish that native speakers use every day, aka “conversational Spanish”…
Don’t you think that Spanish-language TV shows, movies, music, and books might be a good source to learn from…if only you knew how?
Not only that, but it would be fun, wouldn’t it? Far better than learning the language from some boring, dry textbook or workbook that, even worse, is teaching outdated, formal, “non-conversational” Spanish (look at the dialogue in one sometime: do people actually talk like that? No).
The basic technique is obvious: consume popular Spanish-language media and try to learn what they're saying by looking up what you don't understand. Sure. But the issue is twofold:
1) The problems you will inevitably run into (how do I apply what I've learned? how do I ensure I'm not misunderstanding the meaning and thereby learning something incorrect? where do I look things up? what if it's not in the dictionary and Google Translate isn't cutting it? etc.), and...
2) How do we do things as efficiently as possible? If you're a beginner you're going to have to sort out how to do this all on your own, how to solve any problems you might run into on your own, while probably doing many things less effectively and slower than is necessary. I've already learned all this stuff the hard way, I've made many of the mistakes you would if you went this alone, let me just save you a ton of time, trouble, and possibly money by teaching you what I already know from experience.
Has this basic technique been used for centuries by language students and teachers alike? Yes, there are records dating back to the 18th century of language teachers using popular media in the language they're teaching to help their students learn it. I'm not claiming to have invented it. What I've done here is, after having used and refined the technique myself for several years, distilled it down to a system that's easy to learn, and which is taught in a format that's organized, easy to understand, and which takes advantage of all the latest technology, such as the all the various resources available on the internet now.
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Published February 6, 2017
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
I can't say I really read this one, more like heavily skimmed. My plan is to apply the method for learning Russian. The only problem is that I'm such a beginner in Russian that I can't really do anything that this book suggests, not yet anyway! One day, Russian! One day I will master you, and apparently I can do it will watching Spanish telenovelas. :)
This book did not age well. I don't know what year it was first published, but it wasn't 2017. More like 2009. It would have been a 5-star book back then. I think there are now easier/faster methods than this that are the same process. By learning the Telenova method you are learning the most common words in conversation.
You can accomplish this by simply getting the 1000 (2000, 5000) most frequent word lists that are now available online. Drop those 1000 words in the Anki app and you'll be able to understand close to 85% of spoken Spanish. You then sprinkle some grammar on top of that and learn to listen using Netflix and Youtube and you have the updated Telenova method. I did this myself. Once I learned the 1000 words in about 3 months, learning slowly at about 10 words per day, I could understand, or at least get the gist of everything I heard. You can do this with any language. The 1000 word count to understand most conversations will vary depending on the language.
You can accomplish this by simply getting the 1000 (2000, 5000) most frequent word lists that are now available online. Drop those 1000 words in the Anki app and you'll be able to understand close to 85% of spoken Spanish. You then sprinkle some grammar on top of that and learn to listen using Netflix and Youtube and you have the updated Telenova method. I did this myself. Once I learned the 1000 words in about 3 months, learning slowly at about 10 words per day, I could understand, or at least get the gist of everything I heard. You can do this with any language. The 1000 word count to understand most conversations will vary depending on the language.
While the method that the author espouses in "The Telenovela Method" is fantastic, the writing leaves much to be desired. To begin, anyone who is even remotely familiar with popular methods of language acquisition will note that Mr. Tracey's ideas are neither unique nor revolutionary. In fact, much of his method appears to be very similar to that of Khatzumoto from All Japanese All the Time. This is, of course, not terribly important as the author himself states that this method is not uniquely his own. I will state that after being a long-time reader of the All Japanese All the Time blog, Khatzumoto definitely does it better and with far more aplomb.
Unfortunately, the actual meat of "The Telenova Method" falls flat in its presentation. This is just another example of a self-published e-book in desperate need of an editor. The entirety of the book could have been far more succinctly stated in half of the space, possibly less. Numerous run-on and awkward sentences, unnecessary asides, redundancy, over-explanation, and both grammar and spelling mistakes made the text nearly unbearable to read at times. In fact, I actually found myself with a heavy-duty migraine after the first hour of reading because I was mentally correcting the structure and grammar of nearly every sentence. Additionally, if an author wants to be taken seriously, I would suggest leaving typical "blog speak" out of your manuscript. While I don't require elitist speech and diction in everything I read nor am I such a perfectionist that I can not tolerate even the most minute of errors, I find it in poor taste to include such things as "haha" after your sentences or to pluralize using an apostrophe. If I want that, I'll visit Facebook.
The diamonds in this book are the appendices, wherein the author lists a variety of fantastic and FREE resources for the Spanish learner. A LOT of material is represented here, which means that it is inevitable that one will find something to get excited about. There are a few additional gems sprinkled throughout the text, but if you're at all familiar with the immersion method of language learning, your best bet is to simply skip the entire book and go straight to the appendices or just read the blog that it is based on.
Unfortunately, the actual meat of "The Telenova Method" falls flat in its presentation. This is just another example of a self-published e-book in desperate need of an editor. The entirety of the book could have been far more succinctly stated in half of the space, possibly less. Numerous run-on and awkward sentences, unnecessary asides, redundancy, over-explanation, and both grammar and spelling mistakes made the text nearly unbearable to read at times. In fact, I actually found myself with a heavy-duty migraine after the first hour of reading because I was mentally correcting the structure and grammar of nearly every sentence. Additionally, if an author wants to be taken seriously, I would suggest leaving typical "blog speak" out of your manuscript. While I don't require elitist speech and diction in everything I read nor am I such a perfectionist that I can not tolerate even the most minute of errors, I find it in poor taste to include such things as "haha" after your sentences or to pluralize using an apostrophe. If I want that, I'll visit Facebook.
The diamonds in this book are the appendices, wherein the author lists a variety of fantastic and FREE resources for the Spanish learner. A LOT of material is represented here, which means that it is inevitable that one will find something to get excited about. There are a few additional gems sprinkled throughout the text, but if you're at all familiar with the immersion method of language learning, your best bet is to simply skip the entire book and go straight to the appendices or just read the blog that it is based on.
I got this book as a loaner via Amazon Prime.
It's written in very informal, blog-like style by a guy who has a blog about the very same topic. I'm actually considering buying the book - it has great resources and links for learning Spanish for free online. Quick read, and I've gotten so much from putting his clever and practical advice into practice.
Great how-to info, excellent tips, excellent links to other resources. Can't recommend this book more highly.
It's written in very informal, blog-like style by a guy who has a blog about the very same topic. I'm actually considering buying the book - it has great resources and links for learning Spanish for free online. Quick read, and I've gotten so much from putting his clever and practical advice into practice.
Great how-to info, excellent tips, excellent links to other resources. Can't recommend this book more highly.
A long advertisement for his for-profit website. If you want to find sources video for language learning, the subreddit language-learning has something great suggestions without the hard sell.
I feel a bit guilty giving this three stars since I've been using the technique in the two weeks since I've read the book, and the technique itself is great. It's called "immersion," you may have heard of it.
This book is a bit like a self-help book in that there is one idea, and then a great deal of book padded around it. Or at least a medium amount of book. I like books, and I like the idea of self-publishing.
Honestly, my main complaint is that the book is not nearly as funny as his blog. I was drawn to his blog largely by its irreverent sense of humor and absurdist example sentences. The book must be designed for a wider and tamer audience, and it shows.
This book is a bit like a self-help book in that there is one idea, and then a great deal of book padded around it. Or at least a medium amount of book. I like books, and I like the idea of self-publishing.
Honestly, my main complaint is that the book is not nearly as funny as his blog. I was drawn to his blog largely by its irreverent sense of humor and absurdist example sentences. The book must be designed for a wider and tamer audience, and it shows.
Very clear explanation of how to use telenovelas (or other readily available resources in your target language, such as movies, books, or music) to boost your language learning. The author also includes many, many resources that have helped him in his quest to learn Spanish. Unfortunately, the book reads very informally, like he just took a bunch of blog posts and made them into chapters (which also means there is some repeated information). The sheer number of comma splices was also an annoyance.
A Great System, Lots of Resources
Five stars because the method is so interesting and enticing. I love the detail this author gives about the various resources. The editing is only so so, it’s a little choppy and the flow isn’t always consistent. Still what’s most important and what makes this a five star review is that it gives you everything that you need to be able to learn Spanish.
Five stars because the method is so interesting and enticing. I love the detail this author gives about the various resources. The editing is only so so, it’s a little choppy and the flow isn’t always consistent. Still what’s most important and what makes this a five star review is that it gives you everything that you need to be able to learn Spanish.
This book is full of great ideas for improving your Spanish language skills. It is also full of fabulous links, websites, and resources for the Spanish language student. I am using it and hope to see my Spanish language skills improve greatly.
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January 1, 2020
Helpful tips for my whole "learning Spanish" process. Definitely skimmed a bit (as I often do with these types of books) but found useful snippets for sure!
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews