James29 wrote:This week in Spanish I mostly just watched Netflix while running on the treadmill. I run on the treadmill during the week and outside on the weekends. So, I have about 6 hours of Netflix time a week. I finished Breaking the Magician's Code in Spanish. I would say it was a very good show for Spanish. The set up and "plot" is so basic that you cannot get "lost." A magician does an impressive illusion while the narrator narrates. Then, the magician shows the secrets as to how he did the illusion while the narrator continues to narrate. The only person speaking the entire time is the narrator. This makes it VERY easy to follow. The Spanish is very well spoken and well articulated Mexican Spanish. The narrator is often just explaining what is happening on the screen. I had zero problems understanding the show. There were some words I did not know and there were contexts and alternative uses of words that were new to me but posed no problem with comprehension.
The magician has several very attractive assistants and they are scantily clad. This is actually important to "magic" because it serves to distract the viewer from what is going on behind the scenes with the illusions. This seems like one of the strategies of the show... to have extremely attractive scantily clad women prancing around and contorting themselves into various situations to help the magician perform the illusions. Many of the illusions require them to contort themselves in certain ways so the magician can "make them disappear" or "cut them in half." The narrator is a bit of a pervert. The narrator is constantly making innuendo comments about the attractiveness of the assistants. From a Spanish perspective I found it good that I could easily pick up on his constant innuendo comments. If anyone is looking for a good show to watch on Netflix that would be a good starting point to watching TV, I would highly recommend this show due to the type of Spanish and the relative ease of the narration.
I've also bounced around a bit with other shows on Netflix. I am a few episodes into El Chapo, but have not made much progress in the past week. A new show, Sobreviviendo a Escobar, has been released. It is a 60 episode telenovela that was produced for Colombia TV. It also has the audio description function. This is basically exactly what I am looking for... a mid-length telenovela with 45 minute episodes that has the audio description function. Unfortunately, as is often the case with telenovelas, it is about drug related stories. I still think I'll do it as I really want to work through a show like this.
Thanks for mentioning
Breaking the Magician's Code. I watched the first episode last night after reading your post. You know it's all fake ... but it's really cool seeing how all that it done.
I'm on episode 8 of Surviving Escobar and can say it's a well made series. I don't really know what to make of it yet, but it's holding my attention pretty well
(I only made it to episode 12 of Fugitivos before the end of the month). It's definitely a narconovela, but feels different for some reason ... maybe a bit more like Narcos, than El patron del mal, if you've see those series. There is a lot going on: the police trying to get to JJ's girlfriend in hopes she'll offer incriminating information, criminal elements jockying for power and influence, and JJ himself trying to establish himself as he leads a new life in prison.
I'll have to ask around, but if this series reflects how this particular prison in Colombia was at that time, I'm shocked. Narcos, paramiltares (I think I got that right) and guerrilleros are all housed in separate areas of of the prison (more or less) and they have guns ... inside the prison ... everyone. I'm probably missing something here.
There are no drugs yet, but plenty of violence. In fact, the violence is probably the most explicit I've seen from a telenovela, but I could be wrong on that. It's not the most I've seen anywhere, it just goes further than I am used to seeing in telenovelas. Language-wise, they use language you'd expect to see in a narconovela, but you also hear speech from government officials, the police, and people outside the prison system. I'm finding it easier to understand than El Chapo, but that could be a personal thing.
Not to convince you one way or the other, just my take so far.
"Wax on, wax off" - Mr. Myagi