Ever since 'Hips Don't Lie' (well, and maybe before that), Shakira has been dominating the musical charts in multiple languages. She rose to fame at a time when there wasn't a ton of diversity in music, so the Colombian artist was an unlikely hero to millions of fans around the world.
And yet, there's one specific thing about her that fans continually praise, and it's not her hip-shaking abilities.
Fans Praise Shakira For Teaching Them Spanish
Yep, it's as simple as her polyglot status. Fans all over Quora admit that there's one thing they give Shakira credit for: teaching them Spanish. Many of Shakira's earliest songs were in Spanish only, which was pretty bold at the time.
But it also earned her the nickname of being a Latina copy of another, unlikely artist. Remember, artists like Enrique Iglesias and Ricky Martin sort of had to steer the ship -- even though contemporary artists have burned down and rebuilt the entire ship!
So when Shakira came on the radio singing in Spanish, it was a big moment for fans outside of her home country (and the rest of the Spanish-speaking world).
As one fan elaborated, "Shakira is practically my Spanish teacher... I was fluent by 14 yo, almost exclusively by her music, no lessons ever taken." Tons of other commenters in various forums have expressed the same sentiment.
Part of it was how catchy her songs were, of course. Memorizing words in a language is very different than becoming conversationally fluent, though, as other commenters pointed out.
But How Much Spanish Did They Really Learn?
Tons of fans on Quora and elsewhere say that listening to Shakira's music, and then reading the lyric translations, helped them learn Spanish. Some commenters thought it was hilarious that fans claimed to have become nearly fluent just by listening to the songstress's tunes in Espanol.
It's true that one's vocabulary would be somewhat limited, as some commenters hilariously point out. In fact, it's kind of hard to believe the claims that fans became fluent.
Still, listening to Shakira's music could definitely support fans' desire to learn the language. It was definitely inspiring for native Spanish speakers to hear Shakira take their shared language to a higher level!
But then, Shakira did something that was equally as inspiring; she learned English and added that to her repertoire while songwriting. Critics were harsh on her first few attempts at English lyrics, but fans were overjoyed.
And now, Shakira continues her trend of innovation by adding subjects like geometry to her music and videos. Maybe the next batch of fans will say they learned math from the songstress!