Relax and Learn with “También la lluvia”

It’s not always possible to immerse yourself in Spanish in another country, but that doesn’t mean you can’t immerse yourself at home. Watching movies, like También la lluvia, is a great option to practice your listening and reading skills while having fun. Plus, you learn about other cultures, too. You might even recognize a few famous faces that helped make this film so popular!

Why choose this movie?

There’s a reason this movie won international awards, like the Ariel Award for Best Ibero-American Film, three Goya Awards, and was even nominated as Spain’s entry for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 2011. It’s score and cinematography are breathtaking, the acting is outstanding, and it’s not a movie made specifically for language learning; it’s an authentic way to hear Spanish.

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One unique feature of this movie is the combination of dialects. You’ll hear Spanish from Mexico, Spain, Bolivia, and other Spanish-speaking countries. For a student of Spanish, this movie is a gold mine of diverse dialects to help you understand and differentiate between different types of Spanish around the globe.

También la lluvia also contains a plethora of cultural references that Spanish language learners should know. Language and culture are inherently intertwined, so learning about other ways of life will actually help you with your Spanish! You’ll learn about the Spanish inquisition, the Taíno people and the Bolivian Water Wars without even realizing it.

Plot overview of También la lluvia

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Gael García Bernal stars as Sebastián, a Mexican filmmaker who hopes to show Christopher Colombus’s first voyage in the New World. He specifically chooses Bolivia because it’s a poor country and will be cheaper to film there. Daniel, played by Juan Carlos Aduviri, challenges Sebastián and his view of treating the poor all while confronting the major Bolivian issues of access to potable water.

This movie has action, emotions, reenactments of real atrocities that occurred and so much more. You definitely won’t regret watching this movie to practice your Spanish! If you’re advanced, watch it with Spanish subtitles, and if you’re a beginner, English subtitles work just fine too.