I have not really listened to content in my native language for a while, other than movies and series I watch with my family or friends. I wonder why that is?
This may come as a surprise to you if you are a new reader of my blog, but I am actually not an English speaker. Yes, I know my writing skills are far above average and its incredibly hard for you to process that fact, but it is true.
Okay, I am kidding about my writing skills, but I am indeed, a Spanish speaking person.
One of the trade-offs of learning English and liking it, is that I realized I don’t really listen to content in my language anymore. If I get to choose between content in English or Spanish, I am quite likely to choose English, unless we are talking about the Star Wars prequels, which have like the best dub ever. Or most Dreamworks movies, or some old cartoons, or Malcom in the Middle.
Alright, there is some content in Spanish I enjoy, but I don’t consume it as often as I do YouTube videos, podcasts, music and the like.
I know people like LuisitoComunica and other big names like El Rubius or AuronPlay. But I rarely ever check their content. My feed is full of English videos, and maybe a couple soccer highlights because YouTube keeps recommending those because I got a little carried away during the World Cup. Regardless, nothing is in Spanish.
That puts me in a bit of an awkward situation when I want to share my thoughts on some news, or a new device or I want to share a tutorial about something to a friend or family. The way I consume media is very different from everyone around me.
The thing is, I haven’t felt like trying to switch to Spanish content again, there is no such thing as a Linus Tech Tips in Spanish (they’re working on having Spanish dubs though) or anything like Michael MJD or The Corridor Crew.
Most video creators don’t have content of such quality, at least in my opinion. I think I may have a bit of malinchism on me, I am aware. I also think that the content from the bigger channels feels a lot more scripted to me, less natural and exaggerated, made specifically to be easy to consume and trendy, trying to catch up.
Also, most good content is from Spain, and they have their accent. And don’t get me wrong, that’s totally fine, I just hate that its hard to find people that talk like I do. Its even harder, because Spanish videos of content I would watch tends to contain a lot more curses and such (specially gaming videos) compared to English. I still follow a couple of channels in Spanish that curse a lot though, when their content is actually worth it.
It just doesn’t fit my taste as much nowadays.
I went a little too much towards video content, but the same is true of writings, podcasts and websites.
I actually started reading 1984 in Spanish, I read a third of it that way, however, I ended up changing to the original English version from there. A couple of times I read both versions at the same time, or listened to the English book while reading in Spanish and such. But the translation, while it made complete sense, didn’t really fit my taste as much, I am willing to say I am just biased though.
Websites, news, the same thing. I don’t follow any Spanish news and that’s kinda good and bad. I am completely unaware of most local news and drama, and that’s completely fine in my book. But of course, I have to go through some US politics and the like a couple times. Although FreshRSS can hide some of that content for me thanks to its filtering features.
Besides, when it comes to tech news, they’re always late compared to English websites.
I sometimes think I should do an experiment. I should start to willingly consume more Spanish content for at least a couple of weeks. I could look for some podcasts in Spanish, subscribe to some Spanish channels, I may even log into my Spanish speaking instance for a bit. Honestly, probably not, but I could.
I am not promising anything, but yeah. I remember I used to watch a ton of Spanish videos back in the day. I guess I kinda miss it, especially after watching a rewind of El Rubius and cringing a lot at it, its so cringe and yet I am nostalgic of it. It is how it is.
Also, because of the amount of cursing in those videos, I think its yet another factor of why I avoid it. When I listen to it without my earphones I immediately get weird looks in my house. Because I don’t curse at all and my mom does not like it, which is an advantage of English, as people around me don’t know when bad words are being spoken. 🤣
Anyways, its weird. I may try going back to content in my native language. Who knows?
