Carlos Aguilar Augusto Benedico Arsenio Campos Luís Couturier Edwin Francisco Edith Kleinmann Servando Manzetti Jorge Martínez de Hoyos Yasmín Pereira Destinos: An Introduction to Spanish, also known as simply Destinos, is a television program created by Bill VanPatten, who at the time was Professor of Spanish and Second Language Acquisition at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign.
[2] Its 52 episodes are often used for educational purposes in schools, and are available online from the Annenberg Learner site and some local PBS stations.
Destinos uses the telenovela (Spanish soap opera) format to teach Spanish-language communication and comprehension skills.
Early episodes have English-language narration in addition to Spanish dialogue, but the English content continually decreases before disappearing entirely.
It also covers a variety of country-specific usages: for example, it uses both the verb extrañar (to miss somebody or something) and the phrase echar de menos (which means the same thing).
This may make the series seem overly long and excessive, but the reviews provide repetition in order for viewers to retain the material.
Destinos recounts the story of Los Angeles-based lawyer Raquel Rodríguez who is hired by the family of Fernando Castillo (Augusto Benedico).
He had discovered that his first wife, Rosario, did not die in the Spanish Civil War as he had believed, but had survived and had an unknown child.
The beginning: In a large estate called La Gavia outside Mexico City, a very old Don Fernando has been keeping a secret for some time: he received a letter, from one Señora Teresa Suárez of Seville, Spain, stating that his first wife, Rosario, did not die in the Spanish Civil War as he had thought.
Raquel travels to Madrid; after a comic mix-up of identities and hotel rooms, where she is thought to be the winner of the Spanish lottery, she then meets Sra.
Suárez gave her (the Estancia Santa Susana, a real tourist ranch near Buenos Aires), she follows a lead from a local gaucho, happens upon the office of psychiatrist Dr. Arturo Iglesias, and soon finds out he is Angel's half-brother and a son of Rosario.
Arturo and Raquel begin a long search for acquaintances of Angel in his last known location, an Italian seaport neighborhood of Buenos Aires called La Boca.
After several days, during which Raquel and Arturo start to develop a romance, Héctor produces a letter with Angel's address in San Juan, Puerto Rico.
Family Problems Arc: Meanwhile, after Don Fernando is transported to Guadalajara to see a medical specialist, a financial irregularity comes to light.
Another monetary difficulty arises, this time between Angela and Roberto, over the fact that she wants to give her part of the money from the sale of their father's home to her Jorge.
To their amazement, Don Fernando tells them that he doubts their story: he does not believe that Arturo is really his step-son and Angela and Roberto are really his grandchildren.
Finale: To wrap up the series, Arturo expresses his interest to move to Los Angeles to be with Raquel, since he has no family and few friends in Argentina.
The episodes are only 15 minutes long in this sequel, and some major characters from the earlier series, such as Arturo, do not appear outside of flashbacks but may be mentioned or play a role behind the scenes.