Recent Content

Tapas: a film about everyday Spanish life

Submitted by Nikki on

Title: Tapas
Released: 2005

Plot Summary

This quirky Spanish film centers around a tapas bar in a tranquilo suburb of Barcelona. Although the storyline is not full of action, you do get to meet some great characters who form unlikely relationships, like the bully tapas bar owner who hires a Chinese immigrant with a passion for cooking and a perfect command of Spanish or the young grocery store worker Cesar who falls for the owner of the neighborhood deli who is twice his age.

The film is also about secrets in love and life and coming to terms with them, like the drug-dealing grandma grappling with her husband's cancer diagnosis or the tapas bar owner understanding why his wife may have left him.

I imagine anyone who has spent time living in Spain would love this film for pointing out the subtle idiosyncrasies of Spanish culture.

Language Learning Notes

Topics: 
Cine - Movies
Tags: 
Spain
food

Favorite Words and Expressions from Students

Submitted by Nikki on

Favorite Spanish Words

  • Zanahoria
  • Marcha
  • Madrugada
  • Murciélago
  • Bombero
  • Baboso
  • Salud
  • Negocios
  • Campesino
  • Zorro
  • Zorrillo
  • Picante
  • Chistoso

Favorite Expressions and slang in Spanish

  • En boca cerrada, no entran moscas. Literally, flies don't enter a closed mouth but more like "silence is golden".
  • Imagínate. A command to imagine, often used as English-speakers say "Can you imagine?"
Topics: 
Student Comments

The Old Patagonian Express

Submitted by Nikki on

From Boston to Patagonian by Train

In his world travels, Paul Theroux has helped define the travel writing genre, including a book focused on travel to Central and South America in The Old Patagonia Express. The book tells the story of his 1970s journey from Boston through Latin America and ending up in Patagonia. He chooses rail travel for its slow nature and for the chance to see the countryside and how people who used the train lived, preferable to instantaneous air travel that moves you between two different spaces with no time to process or experience the transition.

Topics: 
libros
Tags: 
travel writing

The Geography of Bliss

Submitted by Nikki on

The Geography of Bliss tells former NPR correspondent Eric Weiner's tale searching for the happiest places in the world. In his year-long project, his visits include Iceland (one of the happiest places in the world), India (a world of contradictions with relatively high levels of happiness), the Netherlands (where he finds tolerance and the Center for Happiness Studies), Bhutan (a small Himalayan nation striving towards Gross National Happiness) and Moldova (one of the world's unhappiest places). In each place, he strives to understand the factors and cultural aspects leading to the country's high level (or low level in Moldova's case) of happiness.

Topics: 
libros
Tags: 
Travel

Sugar: a Film about the DR, Baseball, and the American Dream

Submitted by Nikki on

Title: Sugar
Released: 2009

Plot Summary

Sugar is the story of Dominican baseball player Miguel "Sugar" Santos pursuing the American dream which, the film shows, is not always as it seems. Sugar opens at a baseball camp in the Dominican Republic, a springboard for recruiting the best players to play for US teams. Sugar is recruited to a small town in Iowa where he works both to prove himself as a great player but also to adjust to his new surrounds despite cultural differences and a language-barrier. This textured American-dream story includes many funny moments, like newly arrived players ordering French toast for every meal since it's the only thing they know how to order. It also explores the struggles involved in following a dream and what it takes to make it.

Language Learning Notes

Topics: 
Cine - Movies

First Stop in the New World: Exploring Mexico City

Submitted by Nikki on

David Lida's First Stop in the New World is a wonderfully-written look at modern Mexico City, a city he loves not in spite of its paradoxes but because of them. Having lived as an ex-pat in DF since 1990, Lida provides great insight into the culture and its idiosyncrasies from a somewhat outsider's perspective. It's clear that Lida is a journalist always looking for an interesting angle from which to explore the great city, providing tidbits that are unique to DF.

Topics: 
libros
Tags: 
Mexico
travel writing

Latin American Travel from your Living Room

Submitted by Nikki on

Travel is a vanishing act, a solitary trip down a pinched line of geography to oblivion.
-Paul Theroux in The Old Patagonian Express

Summer Classes through Denver Spanish House

Take a look at our full summer schedule of classes, including upcoming:

The Next Best Thing: Armchair Travel

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