 The success of Dónde Están los Ladrones ? prompted American singer Gloria Estefan , 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 . The first song she wrote was " Objection ( Tango ) " and in an interview with <unk> , she revealed that writing songs in English proved to be challenging for her : " I prayed and asked God to send me a good song today , and I remember I started writing the song [ ' Objection ( Tango ) ' ] a couple of hours after . I wrote the music and lyrics at the same time , and when that happens it 's really magical to me . " After completing " Objection ( Tango ) " , Shakira decided to write ten more songs and began setting up portable recording studios in the rural region of Uruguay . She wrote various songs with a " dictionary in one hand and a thesaurus in the other . " Shakira collaborated with various writers and producers on the album including Estefan , Lester Mendez , Luis Fernando Ochoa and Tim Mitchell . Being " more in control than ever " , Shakira closely supervised the development of the album . The singer also served as the primary producer of the album . 
