Learning Spanish? Add Entertainment!

One of the most helpful things to supplement your language learning is to add music, movies, and shows to your daily life. You’ll be hearing the sounds on TV and singing along with the words while you make dinner or work out… and there are tons of movies, shows, and music for everyone’s taste! Let’s start with the TV portion and we’ll do music in another post…

Netflix and the other streaming networks always have options to subtitle your shows and movies, so you can start out with the Spanish show and English subtitles. Eventually you can swap those to Spanish subtitles when you’re not a noob anymore, but still want the words on the screen. I also recommend dropping your old Netflix and signing up for the Spanish one - it’s cheaper, and it has all of the same shows from every other country that you were already into. Nothing really changes except the price. It’s the same with HBO Max, which is popular in Spain, so instead of trying to VPN your old subscription - get the Spanish version and ditch your old one. Same shows and movies, too!

Some of the shows/movies we personally love (and they cover areas all over Spain, too - Sevilla, Madrid, Galicia, Málaga, and Valeria + Machos Alfa both have long stretches in all kinds of regions and cities from Asturias down to Tarifa!):

Tok Tok (HBO Max): A hilarous, almost slapstick comedy about a group of OCD patients who meet while waiting for the same doctor: TOK TOK

Machos Alfa (Alpha Males - Netflix): Comedy series about a group of male best friends on a hilarious journey to deconstruct - and then reconstruct - their masculinity. It’s laugh-out-loud funny: MACHOS ALFA

Valeria (Netflix): Spain’s modern version of Sex And The City - this one is for the ladies, probably, but my husband still got a kick out of it. It’s a series about 4 unique women best friends and their lives and sexcapades over the years. VALERIA

Clanes (Gangs of Galicia - Netflix): Ana, a lawyer seeking redemption and a new beginning in the Galician town of Cambados, awakens the interest of Daniel, the son of an influential drug trafficker and leader of the Padín clan. It’s a thriller with a little side romance here and there. CLANES

Sevillanas de Brooklyn (Netflix): A feel-good comedy about a family in Sevilla who, to avoid eviction, scams an agency by taking in a wealthy American exchange student from Brooklyn - very funny in parts, very hart-warming in others: SEVILLANAS DE BROOKLYN

Brigada (Drug Squad) Costa del Sol (Netflix): An exploration of drug traffic in Spain, focusing on the first law enforcement organization created to fight the drug trade in the mid-'70s If you live in the Málaga area you will recognize a lot of the series backdrops, as it was filmed and focuses on the area. BRIGADA COSTA DEL SOL