Welcome to the Listening Time podcast. I’m Conner, with polyglossa.com, and you’re listening to Episode 9 of the Listening Time podcast.

If this is your first time with us, welcome! I’m glad to have you here. This podcast is for English learners who want to improve their listening skills in English. If you’re learning English and you already have a decent level of English, and you can understand me right now, and you can understand a lot of English, but you can’t understand real, authentic English content… then this podcast is perfect for you, because on the Listening Time podcast, I speak about many different subjects, and I speak about them in a natural way. I don’t change the words or phrases that I would normally use. I talk normally, but I talk a little bit more slowly and a little bit more clearly than native speakers usually do. So you’ll be able to understand me more easily than you can understand other native speakers.

The goal of this podcast is to help you reach the level where you can listen to authentic podcasts made by English speakers for English speakers. So with each episode, you also have the transcript available. So, if you need help understanding the words or phrases that I’m saying, you can access the transcript for each episode, and you can read as you listen. That should be helpful for you. So, in this episode, I’m going to talk about movie theaters. This is a fun topic because I think a lot of us like going to the movie theater. So this should be fun. Also, before we start, remember to check out our one dollar Listening Practice Seminars at polyglossa.com if you want to practice your listening even more and get more tips on how to improve your listening skills. Also, make sure to give this podcast a like or rating or comment or whatever you can give it on the podcast player that you use. And so… I think that’s it. Let’s get started.

Okay, so let’s start talking about movie theaters. First of all, let’s talk about the different types of movie theaters that exist. Of course there are normal theaters: movie theaters that are the traditional type with the traditional amount of seats and the normal sized screen. But there are also other types of movie theaters nowadays. For example, there are some theaters that are cheap. They’re cheaper than the average movie theater. I don’t know if there’s a special name for these, but I’ve definitely seen many different types of these cheap theaters in the US. For example, I remember going to one cheap movie theater that had tickets for only… I think five dollars, or something like that, which is cheap for a movie theater in the US. So, I remember that I’ve seen some cheap theaters.

But of course, nowadays, the thing that’s more popular is luxury theaters. The word “luxury” just refers to something that is expensive, fancy, etc. Right. So, luxury theaters cost more than the average movie theater costs, right. I’ve been to a couple luxury theaters in the US, and it was pretty cool. They have seats that recline. That means that the seat can be put back, so that it looks like a bed, almost, right. You’re almost lying down on it. And then there are waiters or waitresses that come and take your order and see if you want some food or drinks or something like that. That’s pretty cool.

And there are other features as well. I think a lot of them have a touchscreen device right by your seat. I’m not really sure. I haven’t been to one in a while, but I’m sure they have all kinds of fancy stuff now at these luxury theaters. So, there are many types of theaters. As you can see there are really cheap ones, there are luxury ones, there are normal ones, and there are theaters that are more for art films, and there are theaters that are more for commercial films. There are many types.

I forgot to mention that the word… or the phrase “movie theater” is the preferred phrase in the US. In school, you might have learned the word “cinema”. This is a correct word, of course. There’s nothing wrong with this word, but it’s definitely not the preferred word in the US. In other English speaking countries, they use the word “cinema”, but in the US, we say the “movie theater”, or many times we just say “I’m going to the movies”. We just pluralize the word “movie”, and that refers to the place where you watch movies, the “movie theater”, or “the movies”. Okay?

So now let’s talk about the price of tickets at movie theaters. So I mentioned cheap theaters already, and I mentioned that I’ve seen some theaters that offered tickets for five dollars, maybe six dollars, and sometimes they have a special price if you go earlier in the day. Maybe the price is cheaper if you go before 2pm or something like that. So you can find some theaters that have tickets for like five dollars or six dollars, but that’s not the normal price at the normal, average theater. In the average movie theater, you’ll probably pay about ten dollars or so for a ticket if you’re an adult, and maybe for kids, it’s a little bit less. But the last time I went to a movie theater in the US was a long time ago, but I think it was about ten dollars if I’m not mistaken. For other countries, this is probably very expensive. I know in Mexico, a ticket definitely doesn’t cost ten dollars. It’s probably more like five dollars… probably half that price, and in other countries, it might be even cheaper. I don’t know.

And when talking about luxury theaters, the tickets can be pretty expensive. I’m sure that in the US, you can pay maybe fifteen dollars, twenty dollars, twenty five dollars, even, for a luxury ticket price. I’m guessing probably around twenty dollars, but I haven’t been to one of those theaters in years, so I don’t know how much it is exactly, but it’s probably around that range. So, some people don’t like going to the movie theaters because they have to spend a lot of money on the tickets… but not only the tickets… the food at the movie theater also costs a lot of money. I think this is similar in most countries. I think that regardless of where you are, it’s probably fairly expensive to buy food at the movie theaters. But in the US, it’s especially expensive. So for example, if you want to buy popcorn, which is everyone’s favorite movie food, you have to pay maybe six dollars or seven dollars for a small or medium popcorn, and then maybe nine dollars or even ten dollars for a large popcorn. I don’t know the prices exactly, but it’s around this amount. So that’s just a popcorn. Right. Now, imagine that you have your family there, and you want to buy multiple popcorns and drinks and candy. Wow, that’s a lot of money that you’re going to spend.

So, many people don’t like this option of going to the movie theater because if they want all their favorite treats, they have to pay a lot. The word “treat” refers to some kind of food that’s usually not very healthy for you, but it tastes very good. Right. So, if I’m talking about candy, I could refer to candy as a “treat”. I could tell my kid “if you do all of your homework and chores, you can eat a treat”. Okay. So, some of my favorite treats that I like to eat when I’m at the movie theater, are… candy, of course… I like chocolate covered raisins. If you don’t know what “raisins” are, these are dried grapes that you buy in little boxes, and they’re kind of like a healthy snack, but they’re not healthy anymore when you cover them with chocolate. And that’s what I like to eat: chocolate covered raisins. So that’s one of my favorite treats when I go to the movie theater.

Also, I like cheddar cheese popcorn. This is my favorite flavor of popcorn. I know that, nowadays, there are many different flavors. There’s chocolate and spicy popcorn and all different kinds of popcorn. My favorite is cheese. I love cheddar cheese popcorn. So that’s probably my favorite food at the movie theater. And then… also nachos. I’m a big nachos fan, but I’m… I only eat nachos when I’m at the movie theater. So I’m a big fan of nachos, but only at the movie theater. That’s a good phrase for you as well. When we say, “I’m a big fan of”, or “I’m a fan of”, we’re saying that we like something. So if I say, “I’m not a big fan of sports cars”, I’m saying that I don’t really like sports cars. They’re not my favorite type of car.

So I’m a big fan of nachos, but only when I’m at the movie theater. I don’t eat this food anywhere else. But when I’m at the movie theater, when I see other people with nachos. I immediately want them. So, in Mexico, for example, we eat nachos with cheese and jalapeño peppers. If you’ve never tried a jalapeño before, these are a type of pepper. They’re green, and they’re delicious. I love them. But they’re a little spicy for some people… but I like eating nachos with cheese and jalapeños on top. So that’s another food that I really like at the movie theater. As you can see, I like a lot of unhealthy food. But I tried to eat healthy when I’m at home. But when I’m at the movie theater, I definitely don’t eat healthy. I drink soda and eat nachos and popcorn and candy, and all of that. That’s another reason why I like going to the movie theater.

Another important aspect or important element of the movies is selecting your seat. So, in some countries, you have to select your seat before you go into the theater. You choose your seat when you pay for your ticket. In the US, usually, you pay for your ticket, and then you can go into the theater and sit wherever you want. It’s a free for all. The phrase “free for all”, means that anyone can grab whatever seat they want, right, you can take whatever seat you… you want to sit in as long as nobody is already sitting there.

So, in the US, it’s important to show up early, or on time at least, for your movie, because otherwise, you’re not going to have a lot of options for good seats. So, I think in other countries, people don’t usually do this at movie theaters. I know that in Mexico, we have to choose our seat when we’re buying our ticket, so we don’t have this issue, right. You just know exactly where your seat is when you buy your ticket. So, I don’t know about other countries. I’ve never been to a movie theater anywhere else.

So, one other cool thing about going to the movies, is seeing the previews, right. The “previews”, or the “trailers”, we sometimes call them, are the short advertisements for future movies. Before the movie starts, you see maybe five or six previews, or trailers, of other movies that are going to come out in the future. The phrase “come out” is used when we’re talking about films being released to the public. So I can say, “The new superhero movie comes out tomorrow”. That just means that tomorrow is the first day that we can see it in the movie theater. So, when you go to the movies, and you show up on time, you usually see trailers or previews. I used to love watching these previews before the movie started because I loved seeing what new movies were going to come out, and it always made me excited about waiting for these other movies that I wanted to see.

So, trailers can be pretty exciting for people that are film lovers, because they give you a little… a little taste of what’s to come. Right, it teases you about what is going to come in the future. When we say that something “teases you”, it could mean that it plays with your emotions a little bit by showing you something exciting or something like that. So sometimes we might hear the phrase “teaser trailer”. It means that the movie makers release a very short trailer or preview of their new movie, but it’s really short and it doesn’t show you much. It just teases you. It just makes you excited or confused, or whatever. So, I always liked previews, growing up, when I would watch them before the movie started. So, I think that’s a really popular aspect of the movie theater.

So, talking about the popularity of movie theaters nowadays, I think this is different depending on what country you’re in. In the US, I feel like movie theaters are becoming less and less popular as the years go by. This is because everyone watches movies on their computer. It’s super easy… it’s super convenient to stream movies on your laptop. When we say the word “stream”, we just mean that you play a movie or a TV show or sports game or something like that, some kind of video on your computer. So it’s very easy to stream movies on your computer, so many people prefer that rather than paying the money, and driving to the movie theater, and having to do all that. They prefer to watch movies from the comfort of their own home. And I understand that.

I agree with that preference, but I also like the atmosphere of the movie theater. I like the excitement about it. I like the food, the treats. I especially like eating popcorn while I’m watching movies. I love all that, so I can’t really abandon that completely. I like that feeling of eating popcorn at the movie theater, watching movies. But to be honest, I haven’t been to the movie theater in a long time. So, maybe I’m finally growing out of that phase of my life. When we say the phrase “growing out of”, this means that you’re becoming too mature or old, for something. If I say “I grew out of those pants”, this means that I’m too big for those pants now. They used to fit me, but now they don’t fit me.

So, I think, in other countries, movie theaters are still very, very popular. For example, in Mexico, I think that movie theaters won’t lose their popularity anytime soon because many people view going to the movies as a cool social event. I can remember seeing many people at the movie theater on Friday nights that would show up and they didn’t even know what movie they wanted to watch. They just showed up at the movie theater because it was Friday night, and then when they got there, they just started looking at the different options of movies. So, for them, the movie wasn’t necessarily the reason why they went to the movie theater. They just wanted to go for any movie, really, because it’s a fun social event.

So, I want to talk just a little bit about the word “movie”, because it’s an interesting word, it has an interesting history, because it actually comes from the phrase “moving picture”, right. So movies are really moving pictures. And we forget this, but film is actually composed of many pictures that you see in a very, very fast succession. So you see a bunch of pictures, very fast, and it looks like they’re moving. So, this is where the phrase, “moving pictures” comes from, and that phrase was shortened to “movies” a long time ago. So that’s why we say “movies”. But today, most movies are actually not shot on film. When we say the word “shoot” here, we mean record… record film or record video. So, most movies are not shot on film nowadays. They’re recorded with digital cameras. So they’re not technically moving pictures, they’re just digital recordings. So, it’s definitely a different thing nowadays. The industry uses completely different technology that people in the past never used when they shot movies.

So lastly, let me just tell you about a couple of genres of movies that I like. The word “genre” just means type. If I say “genre of movie”, I’m saying type of movie. So, in the past, I really liked horror movies. Nowadays, I don’t watch horror movies anymore. I think I have grown out of that, but when I was younger, I liked being scared with adrenaline. This is a young person’s thing. And when we grow up, oftentimes we stop liking that. But yeah, I used to watch a lot of horror movies. And I also like thriller movies, movies that are very full of suspense and mystery and things like that. I think that’s probably my favorite genre. I also like documentaries. I watch documentaries from time to time, but honestly, nowadays, I’m not a big movie guy. I don’t really watch a lot of movies or TV shows, nowadays. I prefer reading, and I prefer spending my time doing other things. But I definitely went to the movie theater a lot in the past when I was younger. But like I said, I’m more interested in reading and things like that nowadays.

Alright, so I hope this episode was helpful for you and was a good tool for you so you can practice your listening skills. Remember that you have the transcript available with this episode, so you can access that and listen again, and this time you can read the transcript and try to learn those new words and phrases that I showed you this time. So, also remember to sign up for our one dollar Listening Practice Seminars at polyglossa.com if you really want to improve your listening skills. And, of course, please like this podcast, share it with anyone who might find it useful, and if you can, give it a rating and a comment and tell people what you think about this podcast. Thank you for listening to this episode, and I hope you’ll come back for episode 10 of the Listening Time podcast.