Learn Spanish with Stories

Today's episode is different. And it's different not because it's a true story (because we always feature those on our podcast), but because your narrator, Anthony, went through the events expressed in the tale.

This is the reality of how Venezuela collapsed, of what led 7 million people to flee the country and seek a better life elsewhere. It's an account of how any average family (in this case, a family th...

The lithium in your phone's battery, maybe the device you're using to read this - it may probably have come from Chile, and the copper in the wires of your charger may have come from Peru... Latin America is and has always been one of the main provider of precious metals in the world.


And this didn't begin with the Spanish and Portuguese colonization, either... the natives had been mining long before th...

The gods of ancient Latin American belief were very interesting and different from what we have to come to know in Asia, Europe, and North America... they were somewhat more human, said to walk among us when they felt like it, and collaborated closely with animals and nature to make things occur.


Quetzalcóatl, the Feathered Serpent, is one such example, perhaps the greatest of them all... disguised as a noble but agin...

Retiring in Latin America as a foreigner = 👍​

Retiring in Latin America as a Latin American = ​☠️​


Let's face it - when you think of the Caribbean, Brazilian beaches, the Angel Falls in Venezuela, Mexican resorts and Argentine plains, there's a feeling of relief and joy that you can spend your final years just exploring the land and living for cheap.

But what does it look like for a native, and how ...

There is a Filipino hero who, despite raising his voice and an entire nation against the Spanish colonizers, is so respected globally that he has his own monument in the center of Madrid, Spain's capital.


His name is José Rizal - but what's the story behind this incredible figure, who, unlike Simón Bolívar or José de Martín (among others), never raised his arms against the Spanish and instead led with beauti...

If you think only North American politics get crazy around, before or after election season, then you're very mistaken: Latin America has a serious problem with political polarization. And the worst part, frankly (as a Latin American myself), is that both sides are very poor at doing their job.


Because sadly, both the left and the right wing of politics have failed to follow through with their promises, and have ...

"Spain should ask for forgiveness" - these were the words of Mexico's new president, Claudia Sheinbaum, shortly after being elected. She took it a step further and decided not to invite Spain's King Felipe VI after he failed to respond, and this initiated a grand debate: should Spain apologize for what their ancestors did 500 years ago?


Some claim it is a fair demand by a number of Latin American g...

Donald Trump is back in power, and he is already taking action to bring mass migration into the US from the south to a screeching halt (understandable based on the numbers we were witnessing, but not a popular decision).


But he's also affecting Latin America in many other ways, several of which are extremely harmful for local economies. You see: Donald Trump is "America First", through and through, and ...

If you think about a psychiatrist, you usually associate this with someone of very high social standing, and if it's somebody who even served the president, then there's no way they could be a wrongdoer, right? Right...?

Wrong. Edmundo Chirinos, despite even being President Hugo Chavez's psychiatrist at one point, led a despicable double life in which he sedated and abused his female patients, committing ter...

Fine, right off the bat I'm cheating - Equatorial Guinea is NOT a Latin American country, I know... but it's also incredibly linked to the Spanish-speaking culture, and is a case study in itself of how colonization has entirely derailed the future of a nation in good ways and in bad.

Equatorial Guinea has a curious story behind it. Unlike with Christopher Columbus's "serendipitous" discovery of Latin Am...

Have you heard of the "War of the Pacific" before? Your mind will inevitably go to WWII, where the American soldiers fought the Japanese in an endless, bloody battle that culminated in the two atomic bombs being launched on Japan, but... 


That's certainly NOT what this was. What I'm talking about today is the war that occurred between Chile and the alliance of Bolivia and Peru, when some trade disa...

On April 22, 1997, at 15:23, one of the world's most incredible military operations occurred on the planet, and you've probably never heard of it...


Operation Chavín de Huántar was a surgical military operation that took place after the MRTA (a far left-wing guerrilla movement) took close to 800 hostages at the Japanese Embassy in Lima, Peru. It was not just any operation, however, but one that required an e...

Few names of Venezuelan gangs and cartels have made as many headlines as El Tren de Aragua, especially in recent months. Named a terrorist organization by President Trump's administration and called "the most disruptive criminal organization operating nowadays in Latin America" by an esteemed Colombian former vice-president, this gang is among the most dangerous in the world.

And the worst part is that they'...

A wealthy and respected family... hiding dark secrets of kidnapping and murder behind the scenes. Nope, it's not your newest documentary on a streaming platform - this actually happened in Argentina in the 1980s, just after the right-wing state terrorism of Operation Condor, when a wide range of corrupt cops and torturers were left unemployed, and had to find another way to use their "talents".


Arquímed...

Whenever you think of the Cuban Revolution, the first names that come to mind are Fidel and Raul Castro, and Che Guevara - right?


But the amazing thing is that there is a name that should always equally appear alongside them, as one of the nicest and kind of the Cuban revolutionaries, who acted as a pacifying presence and kept everyone level-headed: Camilo Cienfuegos.


And the most incredible part of Cien...

Neighbors, rivals, and sometimes even enemies: Argentina and Chile have long shared the tall but thin mountain range of the Andes as their border, many times coming close to blows over territorial differences, and long eyeing each other with distrust over their neighbor's plans.


But both sides have their points to make, their truths, and their reasons to be as they are - and today we'll hear from both sides ...

What happened at Jonestown, Guyana, is something that has spawned an immense number of books, movies, and even day-to-day phrases, but what it created the most were questions.


The biggest of all: why were his followers so easily convinced to drink the Kool-Aid (literally)? And why didn't anyone see this coming?


In this episode of the Learn Spanish with Stories podcast, we travel to a country rarely ...

Just over 10 years ago, on September 26, 2014, a tragedy occurred in Guerrero, Mexico. 43 students heading to a protest in the capital vanished off the face of the Earth — or actually, they were taken off the face of the Earth.


But nobody knew where, and nobody seemed to know who had taken them. All there was, was a flimsy explanation that was quickly accepted as "the official truth" by many. 


...

Climatology might seem like it's been around forever, but it's actually one of the newer sciences. One of the fathers of this science was Alexander von Humboldt, who traveled to South America and Mexico with one goal in mind—to demystify the New World and illuminate how the so-called "primitive" natives really lived there.


In an extended journey across several nations with his companion, Aimé Bonpl...