Getting back to Schwarzenegger's comment, I think he is correct. There is a difference between catching up on the news from Mexico in Spanish (which is reasonable) and spending every minute between dinner and bedtime watching TV in Spanish, if one's goal is to learn English. Arnold is better than average, I think, at learning English, but here in Miami there are hundreds of thousands of people who have been here for decades who cannot pronounce anything in a manner recognizable to an English speaker, even one who has lived in Mexico and is fluent in Spanish like myself.
If you are going to get anything but crappy jobs here, you need English or a major connection with someone Hispanic who owns the business.
I think everyone can learn a foreign language, and should, but it takes either talent and a lot of time and effort, or less talent and even more time and effort.
Missing 1000 telenovelas so far as culture goes, is like missing 1000 sitcoms like Martin or 1000 episodes of Days of our Lives.
Commercial TV is best described as "chewing gum for the mind"
The best thing about telenovelas is the fact that they always end. Within two years if they are popular, less if they aren't.
They are so utterly predictable that pretty much everything about the plot can be determined just by looking at the characters, their dress and body language. Mistaken identity, confusing sets of twins, people getting total amnesia when whacked on the head, and total recall when clobbered a second time, parents who lie about who their children are or aren't... all these are used over and over again. Like the Disney movie, where we always know that the geeky kid will hit the homerun that will win the championship in the last moments of the game, everything is predictable.
