Dora el Exploradora

Source: wikipedia.org

As a final note this month on foreign language adaptations (following on from the question about the consistency of Yoda’s syntax and Buzz Lightyear’s “Spanish mode”), here’s a quick note about the well-known children’s cartoon, Dora the Explorer.

While English speakers familiar with Dora the Explorer will know that during her adventures she (and the children watching) learns basic Spanish words and phrases. However, since Dora has since become a household name, there have been many foreign adaptations made – including Arabic, Japanese, Hebrew, Malay and Tamil. Each different adaptation has a different bilingual element – for example, the Arabic version teaches English, while the Serbian version teaches Spanish. However, most foreign versions teach English, both because the original was a US series and the fact that English is considered (unofficially) the world’s lingua franca.

You can find the full list of bilingual pairings on Wikipedia.

So, while Dora the Explorer may have been created to teach Spanish to English children, her fame has actually made her known worldwide as an English teacher.