Destinos is the best video series teaching Spanish ever. PBS aired these 52 episodes back in ‘92 or so.

Destinos: An Introduction to Spanish
Destinos teaches speaking, listening, and comprehension skills in Spanish. This telenovela, or Spanish soap opera, immerses students in everyday situations with native speakers and introduces the cultures, accents, and dialects of Mexico, Spain, Argentina, and Puerto Rico.

Early episodes have an English speaking narrator that explains part of the story. As episodes progress, less and less English is presented and it’s soon 100% Spanish.


There’s a review of previous week’s episode, along with a short tutorial section where a picture is presented with the Spanish word, at the end of each episode is a small quiz about the Spanish in the episode. There’s a workbook available (here, if you really want it), that expands on the Spanish in the episodes. The workbook isn’t required or even missed to watch and understand Destinos!

It’s free to watch the streaming video online (here). You have to be connected to watch. DVD’s, workbooks, audio cassettes and a host of other materials are available here, but you’ve got to like it a lot for $450 for the entire series. Watch it online, it’s free! You could get the Destinos Workbook and CD and watch the video online with the workbooks.

You’ll get hooked and won’t be able to wait to get to the next episode. It’s a good story line with good production along with cultural information. The Spanish is easy to understand especially at first and you’re learning all the time!

The narrator even explains that you’re not supposed to understand every word of the conversation and to try to follow along using context and character actions to understand the conversation.

There is a Nuevos Destinos that was made several years later, but the episodes are only 15 minutes long and the people I know that have seen it, don’t think it’s as good as the original.