¿Que esta hoy en la cartelera?

I always read about people's travels through Mexico and South America and get insanely jealous, wishing I had my own travel experiences to share.  But a few days ago I realized that while I may not have visited some of the more charming, exotic and popular destinations, I have had the pleasure of traveling to Baja California and spending time in a few cities there.  So today's post is going to be part Spanish lesson, part travel story and much longer than usual, so get comfortable.

One of the cities I visit in Baja California is Tijuana.  Yes, I know that because of the all the bad publicity our news media gives the city many of you are thinking "Are you nuts?".  Well, believe it or not, Tijuana is a  modern metropolitan city comparable to many cities here in the US.  One of my favorite places to go when I'm there is Zona Rio.  It's an nice part of town with lots of upscale restaurants, bars and nightlife.   Oh, and did I mention shopping?  Well, there's a nice place to do all your shopping in an outdoor mall called Plaza Rio.

I'm going to give you all a brief recorrido (tour) of Plaza Rio.  Here's a few photos for your viewing pleasure.

FYI, Comercial Mexicana is a HUGE grocery store along the lines of a super Wal-Mart, maybe even bigger.  You can find everything in there.

Notice that last picture was taken from the top of the escalators.  What's at the top of the escalators you ask?

You'll find an incredibly nice movie theatre, which brings us to the point of today's post.

¿Que esta hoy en la cartelera?

If you've never heard the word cartelera, it's because the people who write our Spanish books seem to think we don't need to know any words beyond cine and película when it comes to movies.

Here's another photo.

I'm guessing you now know what a cartelera is.  Cartelera not only referees to a physical marquee, but also  to any type of movie listing, like online or in a newspaper.

Once you've picked your movie off the cartelera, you'll need a boleto (ticket) to get in.  And FYI, you may hear the word entrada used instead of boleto.  And of course you buy your tickets at the box office, or taquila.

Once you get in the cine (theatre) you may want to stop by the dulcería (concession stand) to buy some golosinas (candy), palomitas (popcorn), refrescos (sodas) or even hot dogs.  And yes, you would actual ask for a hot dog, but with your best Spanish accent.

Next you proceed to the sala (theatre room) that your movie is showing in and hope you can find a good asiento (seat).  And that thing holds your soda that we call a cup holder is called a portavaso (de cine) in Spanish.

When I went to the Cinepolis in Tijuana, I was looking forward to the opportunity to watching a movie in Spanish, even though I knew it understanding it would be difficult.  Well, I was in for quite a surprise.

I was expecting the movie to be dubbed, but instead it was in English with Spanish subtitulos (subtitles).  The subtitulos were flying by on the screen, I can't even begin to tell you how hard it was to keep up, although I didn't do too bad.

Let's translate today's phrase.

¿Que esta hoy en la cartelera?
What's showing today?

Here's a few other things you'll find useful.

You use the word salir to talk about movies being released.

No voy al cine mucho, pero no es que no salen buenas peliculas
I don't go to the movies a lot, but it's not because there are no good movies are coming out

To talk about movie opening or premieres you need the word estreno.

Estrenos de cine
Movie openings/releases

Próximos estrenos
Upcoming releases

Gran estreno mundial de la última película de la saga Harry Potter en Londres
The wold premier of the last movie of the Harry Potter saga in London

La película esta en 4 salas
The movie is in 4 theatres

You know, until I typed that last sentence I never noticed that we use the word theatre to talk about the entire building, but yet we also refer to each room as a theatre as well.  And people say Spanish is confusing.  But I digress, so let's move on.

The movie screen itself is called a pantalla, and you can use the phrase gran pantalla (the big screen) just like you do in English.

No me gusta sentarme demasiado cerca a la pantalla
I don't like to sit too close to the screen

And although you may see the verb mirar used to talk about watching movies or TV, the correct verb is ver.

No pude ver la  película anoche
I couldn't see (watch) the move last night

Whew!  With the execption of a few loose ends, we're finally done.  Let's tie up these loose ends so you can get on with your day.

I borrowed the photos in this post from the sites below, and there are many more photos of Plaza Rio and the Cinepolis theatre, so click around and take a look.

http://www.plazariotijuana.com.mx/galerianoche.htm

http://www.cinefis.com.mx/Cinepolis-Plaza-Rio/t/1596

http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?p=39121202

http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=325237

You can also go to www.Cinepolis.com if you want to pick up some more movie related vocabulary.

And if you're interested in movie reviews in Spanish, here's a good place to start.

http://www.blogdecine.com

If you're like me, you might have a hard time remembering all these phrases when the time comes.  Well, if you have an Android phone you don't have to remember them, you can carry them around with you on your Android phone with My Spanish Phrasebook from Google Play.  Developed by yours truly of course. 

Ya, eso es todo por hoy.

Hasta la próxima.

Para los ke pidieron fotos ojicafe

Yes, that's an ojo.  An eye for those of you who are truly Spanish newbies.  

And as we all know, eyes come in all different colors.  If you want an extensive list of eye colors (color de ojos) in Spanish, here's a link to Wikipedia:

http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_de_ojos

But you can do that later.  Here's a quick listing of common eye colors.

Marrón, café o castaño - Brown

Azul - Blue

Verde - Green

Negro - Black

One way of talking about the color of someone's eyes is to simply say...

Tienes ojos verdes

You have green eyes

You just conjugate the verb tener to it's appropriate form, throw in the word ojos, the necessary color and you're good.  Here's one more example.

Tengo ojos azul

I have blue eyes

You get the idea.  But it turns out there's another way to talk about eye color.

Soy flaco pelo negro oji negro

I'm thin, black hair, black eyes

Did you catch the "oji negro"?  I've seen this written a few different ways:

Ojinegro, oji negro and oji-negro

I have no idea which one is correct, and on top of that, I had to look through a few dictionaries before I could even find the word ojinegro.  When you're talking it won't make a difference, and I doubt anybody really cares anyway.

Some other colors:

Ojiazul - Blues eyes

Ojimoreno - Brown eyes

Ojiverde - Green eyes

Ojigris - Grey eyes

We have just one thing left to talk about.  Our expression for today.

Para los ke pidieron fotos ojicafe  

For those of you who asked for brown-eyed photos

If ke doesn't look familiar to you, don't worry, it's basically chat speak, or shorthand if you prefer.  You may also see just plain k, or even q.

That's all for today.  Don't hesitate to go out and start using your new found vocabulary!

Saludos

Soy pelimorado a rayas

One of the first words you learn in Spanish is the word for hair - pelo.  And if you're lucky, somewhere along the way you learn that cabello is the official Spanish word for hair, although pelo is the colloquial and most common way to refer to hair.

You probably also learned to describe hair colors:

Marrón,  castaño, café - Brown

Negro - Black

Gris, canas - Grey

Rubio - Blonde

Blanco - White

Rojo - Red

To tell someone what color your hair is, you can say:

Tengo el pelo negro

I have black hair

And to talk about someone else, you can say:

Tiene el pelo rubio

She has blonde hair

Let's take a related, but short detour.

Someone with blonde hair can also be referred to as güero or güera.  A red head, or pelo rojo, can be referred to as pelirojo, or peliroja.  What this means is instead of saying:

Tiene el pelo rojo

You can say:

Es güera

She's a blonde

Es peliroja

She's a redhead

If you want to talk about a guy, just use güero or pelirojo instead.  

And I went on for years with that knowledge thinking I knew everything was to know about hair color in Spanish.  And then it happened.  I came across the word pelinegra.

My first thought was "peli what?".

Pelinegra?  How is it possible I've never seen this word before?

A few quick Google searches confirmed what seemed to be obvious, that pelinegra refers to a woman with black hair.  Being overly curious about things in Spanish (meaning obsessive) I figured I'd ask my amigos about this.  My amigos, actually in this case are amigas from Venezuela and Spain.  I asked them about the word pelinegra and the answer they gave me was pretty shocking.

They had never heard of it.

I don't know, maybe I was butchering the pronunciation.  But then again, all Spanish words are not used in all Spanish countries, so I suppose I really shouldn't be that surprised.  Anyway, I decided that I would have to do some research of my own.

Peliroja and pelinegra are not the only other peli~ options available.

Peliazul - Blue hair

Pelirubia  - Blonde hair

Pelichino - Curly hair
  * A quick note here.  In Mexico pelichino is very likely going to be straight hair, while in the rest
    of the world it will be curly hair

Pelilacio - Straight hair

Pelicastaña - Brown hair

Peligris - Grey hair

Pelinaranja - Orange hair

And my personal favorite:

Soy pelimorado a rayas  

Is a translation really necessary?  Although an explanation for such an atrocity might be nice.

Be sure to remember to use the correct o/a ending for male and female, and have fun with these!

Saludos