The success of "Dónde Están los Ladrones?" prompted American singer Gloria Estefan in 1999, whose husband Emilio Estefan was managing Shakira at that time, to persuade Shakira to attempt to crossover into the mainstream pop industry. However, Shakira was initially hesitant to record songs in English as it was not her first language, so Estefan offered to translate "Ojos Así" into English in order to show her that "it could translate well." Shakira then began translating the song herself and showed it to Estefan, who responded "Quite honestly, I can't do this better!." As Shakira wanted to have full control over her recordings, she decided to learn English better to enable her to write her own songs. Wanting to find a method to express her "day-to-day stories in English", Shakira bought rhyming dictionaries, started analysing the lyrics of songs by Bob Dylan, reading poetry and the work of authors like Leonard Cohen and Walt Whitman and took English lessons from a private tutor.