Breakdown of El martes tenemos un plan especial: ir al teatro del barrio.
Questions & Answers about El martes tenemos un plan especial: ir al teatro del barrio.
In Spanish, days of the week usually take the definite article el when you’re talking about a specific day in the future or past:
- El martes tenemos clase. – On Tuesday we have class.
- El viernes voy al médico. – On Friday I’m going to the doctor.
So El martes here means “On Tuesday” (a specific Tuesday that’s coming).
You don’t normally say En martes for “on Tuesday” (that sounds wrong to a native speaker, except in some very specific expressions).
You could also say:
- Tenemos un plan especial el martes.
This is also correct; it just changes the word order and puts less emphasis on martes.
Spanish very often uses the present tense to talk about the near future, especially for fixed or scheduled plans:
- Mañana comemos con mis padres. – Tomorrow we’re having lunch with my parents.
- El sábado salgo con mis amigos. – On Saturday I’m going out with my friends.
So:
- El martes tenemos un plan especial…
means “On Tuesday we have a special plan…”, but in context it’s clearly a future arrangement.
You could say:
- El martes tendremos un plan especial.
but that sounds more like a prediction or a more distant/uncertain future, and is less natural for a concrete personal plan.
Two things are happening here:
Gender and article
- plan is masculine in Spanish: el plan.
- The correct indefinite article is un, not una.
So: un plan.
Adjective position
The normal order is noun + adjective:- un plan especial – a special plan
- un libro interesante – an interesting book
- una casa grande – a big house
Saying una especial plan would be wrong on both article and word order:
- wrong gender: una for a masculine noun
- wrong position: especial before plan is not the default position
There are cases where adjectives go before the noun, but they often change the nuance. For especial, the standard and safest position is after the noun: un plan especial.
Yes, very similarly to English.
In Spanish, the colon (:) is used to:
- introduce explanations,
- lists,
- or a clarification of what was just mentioned.
Here:
- El martes tenemos un plan especial: ir al teatro del barrio.
The part after the colon explains what the “special plan” is.
It’s like saying in English:
“On Tuesday we have a special plan: to go to the neighborhood theatre.”
Note: In Spanish, after a colon you normally do not capitalize the next word unless it’s a proper noun or the start of a new sentence in a more formal text. So ir correctly stays lowercase.
Here ir is in the infinitive form (“to go”), not conjugated.
Structure:
- tener un plan (especial): + infinitive
So the pattern is:
- Tenemos un plan especial: ir al teatro.
“We have a special plan: to go to the theatre.”
English also uses an infinitive here (“to go”), so the logic is parallel.
If you say:
- El martes vamos al teatro del barrio.
that’s also totally correct, but it’s a different sentence:
“On Tuesday we are going to the neighborhood theatre.”
You’re stating the action directly, not presenting it as the content of a “plan”.
al is the contraction of:
- a + el = al
You must contract a + el into al in standard Spanish:
- Voy a el teatro. ✗ (incorrect)
- Voy al teatro. ✓ (correct)
So:
- ir al teatro = “to go to the theatre”
Similarly:
- de + el = del
So:
del barrio = de el barrio
But the contracted form is required in normal speech and writing:- el teatro de el barrio ✗
- el teatro del barrio ✓
Literally: “the theatre of the neighborhood”
Natural English: “the neighborhood theatre”, “the local theatre”.
Yes. barrio in Spain normally means:
- a district / neighborhood of a town or city,
- often a specific, recognizable area where you live or spend time.
So el teatro del barrio is:
- “the neighbourhood theatre”
- “the theatre in our area”
- “the local theatre (around where we live / in this district)
It doesn’t usually mean “slum” in Spain (although in some Latin American contexts barrio can have different social connotations).
Both are possible, but they don’t say exactly the same thing:
el teatro del barrio
- suggests a specific theatre that belongs to / is known as the one in the neighbourhood.
- like “the neighborhood theatre” as an identity.
el teatro en el barrio
- focuses more on location: “the theatre that is in the neighborhood.”
- grammatically fine, but less idiomatic if you mean “our local theatre”.
In everyday speech about a familiar local place, el teatro del barrio is more natural.
With countable singular nouns like plan, Spanish almost always requires an article (un/una/el/la).
- tenemos un plan especial ✓
- tenemos plan especial ✗ (sounds incomplete/wrong)
Exceptions (no article) are usually with:
- plural nouns in a general sense: tenemos planes (“we have plans”)
- mass/uncountable nouns: tenemos hambre (“we are hungry”), tenemos tiempo (“we have time”)
But plan here is a countable thing, and you’re talking about one plan, so you need un.
Two points:
Capitalization
In Spanish, days of the week are written with a lowercase initial letter:- lunes, martes, miércoles, jueves, viernes, sábado, domingo
So martes is correctly not capitalized.
Gender
All days of the week in Spanish are masculine, so the article is el:- el lunes, el martes, el miércoles, etc.
That’s why we say el martes, not la martes.
Compare:
El martes tenemos un plan especial: ir al teatro del barrio.
- Highlights that there is a special plan, and then explains what it is.
- Slightly more “narrative”: first “plan”, then detail.
El martes vamos al teatro del barrio.
- Just directly states what you’re going to do Tuesday.
- No explicit mention that it’s a “special plan”.
Both are natural; the original version puts stylistic emphasis on the idea of having a special plan.