With an international tour, a pair of albums in Spanish and English and an appearance at the World Cup final, Colombian-born singer-songwriter-dancer Shakira seems to have set her sights on a goal coveted by Madonna 20 years ago: global domination.

Shakira shimmied and sang her way through her sensual hit, Hips Don't Lie, for futbol fans in Germany in July, and then watched the song top the charts. Eight things you may not know about Shakira, who performs Friday in Phoenix:

1 Image of grace: Her full name is Shakira Isabel Mebarak Ripoll. Her mother is Colombian, her father Lebanese. Her first name means "woman full of grace" in Arabic.

2 Speaking in tongues: Shakira speaks Spanish, Portuguese, English, Arabic and Italian. She read work by American Bob Dylan and Canadian Leonard Cohen to hone her English for her first album in that language, 2001's Laundry Service.

3 Brains and beauty: Shakira writes the lion's share of her music. For her latest albums, she composed 60 songs in English and Spanish.

4 Romance and family: Her longtime boyfriend is Antonio de la Rua, son of an ex-president of Argentina. The pair were engaged in 2001, and Shakira, 29, says, "I'd love to have children, and I'm going to go for it one day." She poses with her infant goddaughter on the covers of her two new CDs.

5 All about Eve: Shakira strikes a naked, biblical pose on the cover of Oral Fixation, holding an apple, with her breasts obscured by some leaves. The scene was inspired by a painting by German Renaissance artist Albrecht Dürer.

6 Diplomatic side: A UNICEF ambassador, Shakira has led efforts to help poor and homeless Colombian children. On July 21, as violence between Israelis and Palestinians flared, she issued a plea for "diplomatic intervention right away."

7 Musical milestones: Her hit La Tortura, from Fijacion Oral, was the first Spanish-language video in regular rotation on MTV and VH1. She is the first artist to have both English and Spanish albums in Billboard's top 5 in the same year.

8 Marketing savvy: Shakira chose to make the Spanish-language CD her first release of 2005 because "I thought that would somehow encourage the non-Hispanic audience to listen to my music in Spanish (and) become familiar with that other side of my artistry."

Credit: Azcentral.com