#destinos

[aprillikesthings]

Today I finally got a few episodes into Destinos, a program made in the early 1990's to teach Spanish that's a bit like a telenovela.

The story is actually interesting--don Fernando was married to a woman named Rosario and they were expecting a baby, when the town they lived in was bombed during the Spanish Civil War. He thought his wife was dead so he left for Mexico. He married again and had four kids, and told nobody about his first wife.

And then one day when he's old and ill a postcard comes in the mail saying his first wife survived the war. The family hires Raquel to find Rosario (if she's still really alive) and figure out the truth.

And Raquel travels to a ton of Spanish-speaking countries! And I can't help wondering how they got the budget for this??? There's 52 episodes! They go to two cities in Spain, Argentina, Puerto Rico, and multiple places in Mexico.

It must've been fun to film--it's all on location! I do wonder if it felt silly to speak the rather slow, simple sentences in the earliest episodes.

The episode I just watched is meant (in part) to teach the numbers 1 to 21, and a guy at the front desk of a hotel sighs as he counts off the room keys and hangs them up. He also shows Raquel a tourist map and counts off numbered locations, and a kid counts the pet birds in a barbershop. The whole thing is really clever and mostly fun to watch, and there's some comical moments, too.

ALSO THE WHOLE THING HAS CAPTIONS. Hallelujah.

And at the end of every episode the lawyer/investigator (Raquel) looks at the camera and quizzes you:

"What is the secret that's is on the postcard?" The answer is A: the first wife of don Fernando didn't die in the Spanish Civil War.

Some of the teaching materials that went with it are on the website. It even has little games, look:

You drag the keys over to the right words for the number, and a voice says "excellente!" and "fantastico!"

And if you want to watch them all and use the supplementary study materials, you should do that. The whole website is being taken down on July 1st. ;_;

Destinos: An Introduction to Spanish - Annenberg Learner

A video instructional series in Spanish for college and high school classrooms and adult learners; 52 half-hour video programs divided…

[rafaelmartinez67]

A veces...

[lapazdelmar]

Margaritas

Camina hacia mi alma, como si el destino, en su forma más callada, te trajera sin pedir permiso.

Mientras, yo me quedo aquí, sin saber si en algún rincón de ti habita esa misma atracción o si todo es solo un camino incierto.

Quizá valga la pena, quizá no. Hay destinos que no se comprenden, solo se sienten.

Y aunque vengas con silencios, densos como nubes grises, siempre terminarás dejando caer la lluvia fina de tu alma sobre mis margaritas.

Un beso infinito

[potatoattorney]

hace un año busqué "destinos" en ao3 antes de ver el primer episodio con ángela y al ver que todos los fics tenían una "ángela castillo" pensé que era ángel como mujer trans

[dayvill]

[fragmentosadolescentes]

Usted tranquilo, que la tonta que le amaba ya no le mandara mensajes ni le hará llamadas.

Usted tranquilo, que la loca que lo buscaba y lo idolatraba ya no lo buscará.

Usted tranquilo que la estupid@ que le daba todo a manos llenas y siempre estaba ahí, ya no moverá un dedo por usted.

Usted tranquilo que está necia ya no le suplicará amor, ni le mendigara tiempo ni atención.

Usted tranquilo que está boba se irá sin hacer ruido como cuando llegó, si yo no soy parte de su amor, usted tampoco sera parte de mi problema...

Pura maldad ❄️

[omahasnakes]

I got so distracted by Raquel’s bonkers outfit in episode 12 of Destinos that I basically had to watch the whole thing twice and still didn’t quite get what Hector told them about Angel (no spoilers for a show from 1992!)

Bonus: I caught un gatito in the background! I haven’t seen a cat on the show since the pet market, when they had the sickliest-looking cat they could hire.