Word of the Day: Estudiar

It's been a while since I've posted here. I suppose I should make things clear; I don't have time to post a new word every day, but I will do so as much as possible. It will probably end up being two or three times per week. So, here we go...

Estudiar, of course, means 'to study', but Costa Ricans will also use the word to mean 'to read'. When I got to the country and had stretches of time with little to do but to read, people would often apologize that they didn't mean to interrupt me while I was "studying". I would often respond, "I'm only reading". This seemed to confuse them. Before long I accepted that reading and studying are one and the same to many Costa Ricans. Since I was living in mostly rural areas, most people I knew read only when they had to.

My theory is that this correlation between academic work and reading was so strong that people started melding the two activities together in language. I haven't tested this conjecture scientifically, but it seems the most plausible to me. Does anyone have more intimate knowledge of this usage?

Word of the Day: Millonario

You probably won't hear this while you're traveling in Costa Rica, but Costa Ricans will use the word millonario all the time in reference to rich people.

While it's easy to just say that millonario is 'millionaire', doing so would be highly inaccurate. In Costa Rica a US dollar is worth about 500 colones. Consequently, you'd only need about $2,000 in local currency to be a millionaire in the most simplistic literal sense of the word. By such a measure, nearly anyone who owns a home would be a millonario. This is obviously not what is meant by millonario.

At the same time, neither do you need to have a million dollars to be considered millonario. A cool million is something that most ticos can't even imagine. To live the lifestyle of the vast majority of Costa Ricans, one wouldn't need that much money in an entire lifetime, much less have that in net worth at a given time.

To make a long story short, millonario is simply a symbolic term for an extremely rich person, someone with many millions of colones in the bank.

Let me know in the comments if you have any questions.

Word of the Day: Olla de Carne

Olla de carne, literally a 'pot of meat', is a Costa Rican stew made with beef and vegetables. The vegetables are primarily starchy tubers like yuca (yucca), tiquisque, malanga, as well as a light and watery vegetable called chayote.

Funny Shirts in Costa Rica

I would make this blog about funny t-shirts in Costa Rica if I had the temerity to snap photos of strangers in the street. Costa Ricans often wear t-shirts with English writing on them, ones they purchase from the local Ropa Americana store (which is a store that carries second-hand clothes from the United States). Often the locals don't understand what's on the t-shirts. Case in point, I saw an older (white) man strolling down a main walkway in San José donning a shirt that read:

"Look out: Here comes one pissed off black woman"

You might not find gems like this every day in Costa Rica, but the prevalence of North American clothing mixed with the subtleties of a foreign language make situations like these all but inevitable. If you spend enough time in Costa Rica, you're bound to get a few chuckles here and there from ironic clothing.

It's quite common to see people wearing old sports t-shirts and jerseys for teams that are explicitly for the opposite sex of the person wearing it. You might also see someone wearing a humorous t-shirt that says, "Smooth Operator" or "Why am I so thirsty if I drank so much last night"? In most of these occasions when I have known the person wearing the t-shirt, the t-shirt owner did not fully understand the message and, in many cases, would not have purchased the t-shirt having known what it meant.

If you have any ironic t-shirt stories from Costa Rica or elsewhere, please share in the comments.

Word of the Day: Filo

Filo means the edge of a blade in Spanish, but in Costa Rica it is also slang for 'hunger'.

Ex: ¿Tiene (Ud.) mucho filo?

Translation: Are you really hungry?

Word of the Day: Soda

It's not quite what you expect. Soda is Costa Rican for diner. Sodas in Costa Rica won't give you a menu because the fare is pretty standard from one place to the next. Most places will send a waitress (salonera) to your table and ask you to simply come up with your order on your own.

Most people will order a "casado", which is a fixed plate that consists of rice, beans, a few sides, some plantains (green or ripe), and your choice of meat.

The sides can consist of a chopped up casserole dish called "picadillo" or an "ensalada rusa" (Russian salad), which consists of chopped up beets and hard-boiled eggs in a creamy sauce.

The meat choices can include the following:

• Carne en salsa (literally "meat in sauce", kind of like a thick stew or a pot roast)
• Pollo en salsa (usually a single piece of chicken cooked in a light chicken gravy)
• Pollo frito (a piece of fried chicken)
• Pescado (fish, most often fried)
• Chuleta (pork chop)

When ordering a casado you only need to say "un casado con ______", with the blank filled by one of the aforementioned meats. "Un casado con chuleta", for example, would be what you order if you want the fixed meal with a pork chop. You can also order a "un casado vegetariano", which will most likely be the typical base-case casado with just more of everything, but no meat of course.

You can also order items a la carte. The only difficulty is that you have to spell everything out for the waitress. (As a side note, yes, most soda waitstaff is female.) For example, you could say:

"Regáleme arroz, frijoles, pollo en salsa, unos maduros, ensalada rusa y un huevo frito"

Translation: "Gift me rice, beans, chicken in sauce, some ripe plantains, Russian salad, and a fried egg"

(Please note that "regalar", which literally means "to gift", is the most common way to ask for something in Costa Rican culture, even when you intend to pay for something.)

When you're ordering a drink, you're expected to order a soft drink, coffee (if it's breakfast time), or one of their "natural" drinks called "frescos naturales". The frescos are a mixture of some natural source of flavor--usually fruit--mixed with water and sugar. You might be overwhelmed by all of your choices. Among those choices will be some of the following:

• Fresco de piña (pineapple)
• " " zanahoria (carrot)
• " " chan (the seed of the chan fruit)
• " " linaza (linseed)
• " " mango (mango)
• " " avena (oatmeal)
• " " mora (blackberry)
• " " maracuyá (passion fruit)
• " " carambola (starfruit)
• pinolillo (finely ground roasted corn and cacao)

This should be enough for you to survive your first trip to a Costa Rican soda. However, please note that your experience on the Caribbean side might be different. While the process might be quite similar, the actual food will likely be much different, but that can be the topic for another blog post.

Happy eating :)

Word of the Day: Dialecto

Dialecto is 'dialect' in Spanish, but in the rural areas of Costa Rica you might hear people referring to dialect as a language completely different from Spanish. In my area of Guatuso, people would often explain to me that the indigenous Maleku Indians spoke a "dialect". The textbook understanding of the word would make it seem as if Maleku were a dialect of Spanish. What they mean to say is that it isn't Spanish at all. (A more pessimistic view may have the locals interpreting the Maleku language as somehow undeserving of the language status, which could be accurate for some.) It threw me off a bit the first time I heard someone say it, but I learn to tune it out when people continued to say use dialecto in this way.

Word of the Day: Comején

Comején is what ticos say for 'termite', instead of the Spanish 'termita'.

In Costa Rica when a word ends in an 'n' it sounds like a voiced velar nasal [ŋ], which is the same as the 'ng' ending in English words.

Word of the Day: Sólido

In rural areas of Costa Rica some people employ the word sólido to mean isolated, solitary. For example, a farm that doesn't have access to a road could be considered sólido.

Ex: La finca de Carlos está muy lejos del camino. Es muy sólida.

Geographically Neutral Spanish: " "...Es muy solitaria

Translation: Carlos's farm is very far from the road. It is very solitary.

My use of the word 'solitary' is not incidental. I suspect that the use of sólido arises from a confusion between 'sólido' and 'solitario', the latter of which is a proper translation for the word 'solitary'.

If you're traveling to Costa Rica you probably won't hear this word, but if you venture into the countryside, you will come across people who have come across this usage.

Word of the Day: Toldo

A toldo is a mosquito net in Costa Rican speak. A more common word in the Spanish-speaking world is mosquitero, but the Costa Ricans say toldo, which literally means 'awning' or 'canopy'.

Toldos are very important for tourists and locals alike, as the mosquito (called 'zancudo' by Costa Ricans) is the most dangerous non-human animal in the country. Dengue fever and malaria continue to rear their heads, mostly in the Pacific and Atlantic sides, respectively.

Many Costa Ricans will deny the existence of malaria in their country, but cases are documented every year. For some meaningful anecdotal evidence, let me inform you that a friend of mine contracted malaria after spending only a weekend in the Limón province. I still recommend Costa Rica to travelers and aspiring ex-pats, but you should still consult a doctor before you go to take proper precautions. When I went on vacation to Costa Rica's Atlantic coast in January I took a chloroquine-based malaria medication just in case. I will take the same measures on subsequent trips.

The "-illo" suffix

In Costa Rica, especially in the rural areas, people use the -illo diminutive suffix quite often. Since it's used liberally, the derogatory connotation does not apply--at least not in all cases and not to the same extent.

One common use, which is not unique to Costa Rica, is the use of 'chiquilla' to mean a young woman--often in a suggestive (but not inappropriate) way. Think of the word 'chick' in English with a more positive connotation.

A potential problem that arises when you use the -illo suffix is that many Spanish words change their meaning drastically when affixing -illo or -illa. For example, manzanilla isn't a little apple, but rather chamomile.

One time when I was moving tables around for a community event in a rural area, a man warned me that the tables were "pesadillas", which means that they're 'nightmares'. What he meant to say was that they are heavy, which for most Spanish speakers would be: "[las mesas] son pesadas". While I understood what he said in this context, the liberal use of the -illo suffix has the potential for creating confusing situations.

Here's a list of words to look out for, all of which have a different meaning from their suffix-less counterparts. (Keep in mind that not all of these pairs of words share the same morphological roots; for example, pandilla and panda do not share etymological origins.)

comilla (quotation mark) ≠ coma (comma)
pandilla (gang) ≠ panda (panda)
guerrilla (guerrilla) ≠ guerra (war)
sombrilla (umbrella) ≠ sombra (shade)
bombilla (light bulb, drinking straw in parts of South America) ≠ bomba (bomb)
pesadilla (nightmare) ≠ pesada (heavy)

There are countless others. These are just a few off the top of my head.

Word of the Day: Elevador

This probably won't be a difficult one for English speakers to remember. Elevador is the popular word in Costa Rica for 'elevator'. While some Costa Ricans will understand acensor, just stick to elevador. It's the only word I have ever encountered for elevator.

With this said, elevators aren't too widespread in Costa Rica. San José is the only place where they're common. I even remember staying in a five-story hotel in Ciudad Quesada de San Carlos without an elevator.

Word of the Day: Tortillera

Tortillera is Costa Rican slang for 'lesbian'. Because of the connotation of the word, people usually avoid using it to describe a woman who makes tortillas.

It isn't widely considered offensive in Costa Rica, although perhaps it should. Reason being: the words 'playo' and 'tortillera' (used for 'gay' and 'lesbian', respectively) are so commonplace in Costa Rican language that they are often used generically for homosexual people. As a result, people don't necessarily mean harm when they use the terms. However, homosexuality isn't always seen in a positive light in what is a strongly Christian (Catholic, and increasingly Evangelical) country, so playo and tortillera are often used in a negative fashion.

With that said, people will figure out for themselves what is offensive and what isn't. I have met gay people in Costa Rica who use the words playo and tortillera in a joking manner. Others might not find it so funny, so I don't recommend using these words.

Word of the Day: Naciente

Naciente is correctly used as the cognate of the English adjective "nascent".

In Costa Rica the word takes on a different meaning as a noun, referring to a natural spring that creates a small current of fresh, drinkable water. Much of the potable water in outside of San José comes from natural sources. While hiking through forests in the Costa Rican countryside I have often found nacientes. They serve as a good source of drinking water, especially when you haven't brought along enough of your own.

The Real Academia Española recognizes the noun naciente as a dinsticntly Costa Rican word. The Academy describes the gender of this noun as "ambiguous", but I have most often heard naciente preceded by feminine articles.

Word of the Day: Diario

In Costa Rica diario most often means the staple goods (mostly groceries) that one buys to sustain the family. The diario in Costa Rica consists mainly of rice and beans, and whatever fat the family uses to fry its food. (Some families use vegetable oil, but many still use the highly saturated palm fat called manteca.) These foods are often accompanied by cabbage, tomatoes, meat, and cans of tuna. In rural areas, fruits--as well as certain vegetables like yuca, chayote, corn, and elote--are often gathered/harvested locally for consumption. 

The ideas of the canasta básica--which is the basic basket of consumer goods that helps track consumer prices and quantify poverty levels--and the diario are quite closely related. In fact, you could say that the canasta básica seeks to reflect the diario of the average middle- or lower-middle-class Costa Rican family. However, these terms are by no means interchangeable. Canasta básica is an economic  (and often political) term employed by those concerned with macroeconomic issues as they relate to poverty. Diario, on the other hand, is what people use in their everyday lives in reference to their essential periodic purchases.

Vos commands in Costa Rica

As I mentioned in a recent post, Costa Ricans use the same vos form as in other parts of Central America and in South America (most notably Argentina, but excluding the vos form in Chile).

I also gave a quick introduction to vos conjugations in the present tense, but I left out the imperative form. There's an easy way to fix this, because it's really quite simple.

For the verb hablar simply cut off the 'r' at the end. What you get is hablá, with the emphasis on the last syllable. If you read my last post on the voseo you'll note that this is simply the indicative form in the present tense without the 's' at the end.

When you're walking around downtown San José you'll notice that many advertisements will use vos commands. "Entrá y ahorrá", a store might say to entice you. "Jugá y ganá", might be a sales pitch to the foolhardy lottery player. (No offense to lottery players.)

Vos commands work the same for reflexive verbs, except that there's a spelling change when only one pronoun is attached to the end. For example, to tell someone to sit down you might say sentate, with the accent in its "natural" penultimate position, eliminating the need for the tilde. The same applies for commands with direct or indirect pronouns attached, provided there's only one. (When there are two pronouns attached the tilde will always show up, as the tonic syllable always requires a written accent mark when it is the thir-to-last--or antepenultimate--within the word.)

Let me know if you have any questions. As promised, I will soon address the issues of irregular vos forms and the history of the vos pronoun.

Word of the Day: Ocupar

Ocupar, which means 'to occupy' in Spanish, also means 'to need' in Costa Rica. This is perhaps one of Costa Rica's strangest words. Since it's used in this way so often, I recommend shying away from the word ocupar to mean 'to occupy' because it will likely confuse the locals. You should use more general verbs like 'estar' instead.

To illustrate the potential confusion with this word, I was at an internet café and I asked the guy where the bathroom was, to which he asked me "ocupa el servicio"? I responded somewhat facetiously, "no, pero quiero ocuparlo pronto". He then said, "entonces, no ocupa el servicio", to which I responded "no, todavía no ocupo el servicio, pero, sí, tengo que usarlo". He then understood my urgency, but I don't think he ever understood why we had those awkward moments.

All of this just to go to the bathroom. Be mindful of this word!

Not the King's Spanish

***Here's an article I wrote a long time ago for La Cadena, the quarterly newsletter for Peace Corps Costa Rica. It gets a little heavy on the linguistic analysis, but it is worthwhile if you plan on spending any considerable amount of time in Costa Rica. Keep in mind: most of what you find here is most characteristic of the rural areas in Costa Rica. So, you should read this if you care to veer off the beaten path in your Costa Rican travels ***

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Not the King's Spanish

10 examples of non-standard Spanish from the field

You may hear all the time, “el español se pronuncia como se escribe,” and vice versa. There is some truth to this statement, as you probably understand what people mean when they say it; nonetheless, there are many things that people say in our sites that would never be acceptable in a term paper at the Universidad de Costa Rica. For those of you who sometimes wonder whether you are hearing standard Spanish in your [Peace Corps] sites, here is an unordered list of ten examples of common non-standard language in Costa Rica .

1. Strong vowel, ‘e’, changing to a weak vowel, ‘i’. This phenomenon is easiest to spot in verbs that, in the infinitive form, end in ‘-ear’. The verb ‘chinear’, for example, is most often heard as [chiniar]. This weakening of the ‘e’ to an ‘i’ changes the number of syllables in the word from three to two , making the difference quite noticeable. (That is, if you are aware that both forms exist)
2. Más + superlative. The use of ‘más’ with a superlative is something that, just like most other things, when heard often enough, begins to sound normal. “Se puso más peor todavía,” someone might say to you. In this case, the ‘más’ makes the sentence redundant, being the rough equivalent of saying in English, “it became even more worse.” This can be said more better.
3. Más + bueno or más + malo. Most of you probably know that the superlatives for ‘good’ and ‘bad’ in Spanish are single words, ‘mejor’ and ‘peor’, respectively--but after a while ‘más bueno’ or ‘más malo’ just might sound normal.
4. Irregular preterit forms in second and third person plurals. I am referring to the verbs ending in ‘-jeron’, such as dijeron, tradujeron, condujeron, etc. These irregular forms, in spoken language (at least in my site), often revert back to the regular verb ending ‘(j)-ieron’. Use these verbs as you wish in your site, but keep in mind that ‘they said’ or ‘you all said’ is written ‘dijeron’ in Spanish.
5. Venir v. ir. The difference between ‘venir’ and ‘ir’ can sometimes be confusing, and Costa Ricans don’t seem to help matters by their overuse of the former at the expense of the latter . One time after an English class my host mother said to me “se le vino un alumno”. I was a bit confused, because I didn’t remember seeing anybody new in class. Then she reminded me that my host brother left class early because he was feeling ill. We then had a friendly discussion about the wording of her initial statement. “Se me fue un alumno,” I insisted. I still do insist.
6. 'Traer’ in the preterit form. In the third person forms of the preterit, instead of using the standard ‘trajo’ for the singular and ‘trajeron’ for the plural, some people use the forms ‘trayó’ and ‘trayeron’, respectively. This might come from a natural association with the verb ‘caer’, due to the same ‘-aer’ ending. The third person preterit forms of ‘caer’ are indeed ‘cayó’ and ‘cayeron’, but ‘traer’ is different. I don’t know why, but it is.
7. The verb ‘copiar’. While Costa Ricans often pronounce an ‘i’ when the written form is an ‘e’ paired with another strong vowel, I have encountered an example that is, in a certain sense, the opposite. In the first person present indicative form of the verb ‘copiar’, I have heard many people say [copeo] instead of [copio]. By changing the ‘i’ to an ‘e’, you end up adding a third syllable to a word that has only two syllables in its standard form. This non-standard form also moves the tonic syllable away from the verb stem . This does not make the ribosomes happy. (For those who are at least slightly sane, this last comment is a Billy Madison reference)
8. Gender confusion. It happens to the best of us, especially on Calle 15 and Avenida Central toward the end of a long night of partying in San José. Words that are feminine are often mistaken for masculine words, and vice versa. This is sometimes so common that a non-standard form becomes, to a certain extent, standardized. Take, for instance, the word ‘costumbre’. This word is feminine and it requires a feminine article in its standard form. In my site, however, I have heard ‘el costumbre’ many times, never recalling a time hearing ‘la costumbre’. Also, ‘la calor’, which is a non-standard form of ‘el calor’, is very common, especially in rural areas. These gender changes occur so often in certain areas that they become the accepted local standard. Only time will tell whether these changes will catch on in other parts of the Spanish-speaking world.
9. The subjunctive of ‘haber’. This is one of my favorite verbs, which I often say is synonymous with ‘un oso’. Get it? A bear? I’m a big idiot. Anyway, in rural Costa Rica (as well as in other countries), the subjunctive form of the verb ‘haber’, ‘haya’, is pronounced [haiga]. Although I have resisted acquiring this non-standard form, I must admit that not only is it easier for me to slip in that in ‘g’ sound when using the subjunctive form, but also that the non-standard form ‘haiga’ is easier to understand in certain situations.
   • For example, in the sentence ‘No creo que haya azúcar en el café’ the form ‘haya’, having preceded an [a] sound, tends to create one syllable for the two ‘a’ vowels, hardly distinguishing itself phonetically from the indicative form ‘hay’ in the sentence “Creo que hay azúcar en el café”.
   • On the other hand, if we use the non-standard form ‘haiga’ in the sentence we get an unmistakable subjunctive form : “Espero que haiga azúcar en el café”. You still might not be impressed with this word, ‘haiga’. Oh well—it’s your loss.
10. Adverbs as adjectives and adjectives as adverbs. An adverb like ‘bien’ is often used as an adjective in place of ‘muy’. This should come as no surprise to you, as people probably use it all of the time, but it is good to know that this is not formal written Spanish. I, myself, say ‘bien bueno’, but my Mexican cousin, who is an incurable grammarian, always tells me that I sound uneducated. I simply tell her that it’s because I’m from Wisconsin.

In your sites, as well as all over the Spanish-speaking world, you will also find people using adjectives as adverbs. For instance, ‘él corre lento’ is the most common way to say ‘he runs slowly’. However, to be grammatically-sound in written Spanish, you would need to write ‘él corre lentamente’, ‘lentamente’ being the proper adverb. It might not be easy to go against the grain, to always say adverbs where adverbs are formally prescribed, but when you are writing you should always use your “mente”.

Word of the Day: Voseo

OK, most Costa Ricans don't actually use the word voseo--which is the use of the 'vos' as a second person singular pronoun--but el voseo is something that trips up many a foreigner, so I feel obligated to write about it now and then.

Regarding the use of vos is Costa Rica, one must keep a few important things in mind:

• Vos is a perfect substitute for the pronouns tú, and Ud. that are taught in Spanish classes in North America (as well as in Latin American classrooms).
  
• Ud. and vos predominate in everyday spoken language. While Costa Ricans know the pronoun tú, it is mostly relegated to two specific (but important) uses--speaking to God and speaking to a lover. (Bibles refer to God as tú.)
• Ud. and vos are for the most part interchangeable, except that in most formal situations you will want to use Ud. My advice to travelers in Costa Rica is to use Ud. at all times, which tends to be a practice of many Costa Ricans, anyway.
• Vos has its own verb forms in the present tense, but it uses the tú forms in the past and future tenses.

Regular vos conjugations are as follows:

• tocar (to touch) --> vos tocás
• comer (to eat) --> vos comés
• decir (to say, to tell) --> vos decís

As you can see, it is simply a matter of replacing the 'r' with an 's'. As a matter of orthography you will also add a tilde to the last syllable, but that is simply because of a spelling rule.

It's also helpful to look at it as a cousin to the vosotros form, which it pretty much is. To make vosotros singular, forming the vos form, you simply do the following for -ar, -er, -ir verbs:

• tocáis --> tocás
• coméis --> comés
• decéis --> decís

As you can see, the -ar and -er verbs take out the 'i' and the -ir verb takes out the 'e'.

This short lesson will be just about all you'll need to know about voseo in Costa Rica--or just about anywhere else on earth except for Chile. However, for those of you who would like to know about irregular vos forms and the history of the pronoun in both Spain and the New World, I will soon create a post on those issues.

Word of the Day: "hoy en ocho"

This put me through a loop during my first few months in Costa Rica. Whenever I wanted to schedule a meeting for a week from whatever day it was, I'd say "reunámosnos el próximo lunes ". Essentially, when it was Monday I would say "let's meet next Monday". To further clarify I would sometimes say "de hoy en siete días".

Then I watched the earth burst into flames right before me.

Costa Ricans will almost always project a week into the future by saying "de hoy en ocho". When I said "from today in seven days" they thought I was confused because I should have in fact said 'eight'. Apparently I was confused, because to me counting a full week into the future is counting the lapse of seven full days--not eight.

However, Costa Ricans will count the current day in their tally. If it's Tuesday and you want to meet the following Tuesday, you need to tell a Costa Rican "de hoy en ocho". Then, if you want to meet not the following Tuesday but the one after that, you have to say (hold on to your hat) "de hoy en quince".

Yeah, I know, fifteen is neither a multiple of seven nor eight. What Costa Ricans do is count the current day in their calculation for the first week. Then, the last day in that first week is counted, but it won't be counted a second time for the second week tally.

For example, if it's the first of the month your first full week ends on the eighth. That's eight full days, counting the first. Then, your second full week ends on the fifteenth, but for that week you're only counting days 9-15--seven days in total--because you have already counted the eighth day in your first week.

So, when projecting future engagements the first week is always eight days, and then each subseqeuent week adds another seven days. This might seem kind of counter-intuitive to you, but the system works quite well once you get it down.

Costa Rican Spanish Word of the Day: Tepezcuintle

The tepezcuintle ('paca' in English) is a large endangered rodent native to Costa Rica. When you travel to Costa Rica you won't likely see one, not only because it's endangered but also because it's quite shy and only lives deep in the countryside.

Unfortunately, hunting tepezcuintles and keeping them captive is still deeply rooted in local culture. People will hunt them for their food or trap them to breed them in captivity. To do any of this without a permit is highly illegal and carries considerable jail time. Still, people do it. Regardless of this activity, though, humans are encroaching on the natural habitat of the tepezcuintle--and other animals--making its long-term outlook rather bleak.

In rural areas of Costa Rica I have most often heard this animal's name pronounced as if it were spelled tepezcuinte (without the 'l' as the penultimate letter).

Measuring Land in Costa Rica

Land in Costa Rica is most often sold by the square meter, which is about 10.76 square feet. For larger plots of land, other units of measure become necessary. For example, rural land is usually referred to in hectáreas (hectares) or manzanas. 

A hectare measures 10,000 square meters.

A manzana measures 7,000 square meters.

Many Costa Ricans will also have a good idea of what an acre is, giving it an approximate 4,000 square meters--which is quite close to the more accurate 4,046 square meters. 

An approximation that seems a little more perplexing is the approximation of the lenght of a city block as 100 meters, which would make the total area of a city block a full hectare (100 X 100 = 10,000). However, the original idea behind the the manzana as a unit of measure was that it approximated the area of a city block. While this strange approximation does not create any functional problems because it is so widely accepted, it is nonetheless interesting for those of us interested in etymology. 

Another interesting approximation that Costa Ricans make is for the gallon, which is often assumed to be four liters. This gallon measurement comes somwehere between the 3.79 liters used in the United States and the 4.54 liters for the imperial gallon. 

Although I am stressing these approximations, it's important to point out that they're quite accurate. I would actually say that Costa Ricans generally have a better grasp on units of measure and their conversions than most people in the US. Costa Ricans--on average--have to economize on a daily basis. Costa Ricans are constantly calculating per-unit prices to stretch out their money as much as possible--in ways that most Americans are only now learning how to do. 

Word of the Day: Matricidio

Matricidio, slang for matrimonio (matrimony, marriage), playfully and melodramatically points out that your life ends once you get married.

Word of the Day: Guaro

Guaro is Costa Rican Spanish for a cane alcohol that's quite popular in the country. Cacique is the national brand and can be found at any local pulpería (rural general store) or supermarket. It is a relatively weak 70 proof and goes down smoothly without a very noticeable taste. In other Spanish-speaking countries similar products are called aguardiente. It is also very similar to the Brazilian cachaça that goes into its famous caipirinha drinks.

Guaro can also be synonymous with alcohol. 'Tomar guaro' as an expression usually implies drinking alcohol, regardless of the variety. Since my name is Tomás, many Costa Ricans would jokingly ask me "Tomás guaro"? Brilliant.

Word of the Day: Machetazo

A machetazo is a blow landed with a machete. In rural areas of Costa Rica fights that break out in the local cantinas sometimes--but not often--involve machetes. A friend of mine who used to live in a remote part of Los Chiles once had to do a turnakit on a guy's arm because it was bleeding after being almost completely severed by a machetazo. Also, when I was living near Guatuso, a man was walking late at night through the town's center and killed--by machetazos--a kid who was allegedly among a group of teenagers who were harrassing the man (a Nicaraguan) with insulting (and racist/nationalist) language.

Keep in mind that these examples of violence in Costa Rica--a very peaceful country--are purely anecdotal and brought up simply to illustrate the meaning and relevance of the vocabulary. Also, these altercations almost always involve lots of alcohol and beligerence, so you don't have to worry about it if you're not looking for trouble.

Word of the Day: Vacilón

Vacilón is a very common Costa Rican word for 'fun'. The verb vacilar is also very common, which most often means 'to kid' (transitive as 'to kid someone' or intransitive as 'to kid around'). Sometimes vacilar is used in the context of a man or woman "playing" someone of the opposite sex. This might involve showing interest in someone for some purpose (often sex), without actually having true feelings or intentions.

In formal Spanish vacilar has the same meaning that 'to vacillate' does in English. If you try to convey this meaning with vacilar you will likely get confused looks from ticos.

Word of the Day: Paja

Paja is Spanish for 'straw', as in stalks of dried grain. Of more importance to this blog, paja is Costa Rican Spanish for 'fluff', as in words that lack substance and might be spoken for mere showmanship. In some cases 'bullshit' (pardon the vulgarity) might be a good translation.

This term paja is often used to describe the words of a politician who habla bonito (talks pretty) but lacks the moral fiber to follow through on his promises. "Pura paja", a bitter tico might say after listening to the President addressing the country via television (which he does on a regular schedule on the major networks).

This form of 'straw' should not be confused with the straw for drinking, which is pajilla.

Word of the Day: Chingo

Don't be alarmed--this has nothing to do with a similar word in Mexican vernacular. On the other hand, it still isn't church talk. Chingo is slang for 'naked'.

Side note:

In rural areas there are always stories going around about crazy people who sneak into houses and steal things. One time in my community rumor spread about an old man, dubbed "robatangas", who would sneak into homes and steal women's panties. On another occasion a neighboring town had a similar case (although not with panties) of a naked white man called "macho chingo". (I swear it wasn't me.) People were dead-serious about their belief in these crazy characters, just as people in my community were dead-certain that witches existed in our bucolic town. Needless to say, I meet rural Costa Rican stories with a healthy dose of skepticism.

Word of the Day: Caja

Caja, of course, means box in Spanish. But in Costa Rica it also refers to someone's torso.

In the Costa Rican countryside you get used to people being openly descriptive with respect to physique. Ticos will often comment on the shape and size of cattle, as well as humans. Some people I know comment on how much skinnier or fatter I am than the last time they saw me. Apparently these things change from one day to the next.

I guess that "does this make me look fat" question is a relevant one after all.

Word of the Day: Machorra

Machorra essentially means tomboy in Costa Rica. I don't think this needs any further explanation.

Word of the Day: Rancho

Rancho in Costa Rica is a thatched roof enclosure, often in the shape of a cone. The frame is most often made of wood. Ranchos are typically roadside bars/restaurants in rural areas; however, a person of considerable economic means may have a rancho to accompany his home (like the one in the picture). In such a case, a rancho is the equivalent of a gazebo you'd find in some yards in the US. In order to prolong the waterproof seal formed by the grass roof, many ranchos are lined with plastic from the inside.

Costa Rican Earthquake: Antes y Después

As many of you may already know, on January 8th, a devastating earthquake hit Costa Rica. It registered 6.2 on the Richter Scale and caused massive mudslides around Volcán Poás, killing around 40 people and causing massive destruction to many people's homes.

At the time of the earthquake I was in Santa Fe de Guatuso, a place that is not incredibly from the epicenter but very flat and not prone to mudslides. I could feel the incredible force of the earth beneath me, but the amplitude of the movements was great, causing a forceful swaying of the house back and forth without any damage to its structure. I assured my family back in the States that "not a single tchotchke fell from atop the TV". Anyone who's seen the living room of a typical tico home knows what I'm talking about.

Of course, the earthquake was no laughing matter for the many people near the epicenter and their relatives across the country. Thanks to these photos provided by the Costa Rican Volcanology and Seismology Observatory (OVSICORI-UNA) you can get a good idea of the earthquake's severity:


The La Paz Waterfall, before and after the quake



The Río Sarapiquí valley after massive mudslides




A Costa Rican soda (diner) near the epicenter, demolished

Costa Rican Spanish Word of the Day: Alto

OK, so alto isn't exactly a Costa Rican word, but I have had some very serious run-ins with Costa Rican stop signs as of late, so I thought I'd expound a bit...

First of all, just to get the language straight, ALTO--in all caps--is what you'll find on stop signs in Costa Rica. (Some countries use 'PARE'.) Alto is also a noun used to mean 'stop sign'. So, you might hear someone say: "en el próximo alto, a la derecha", which means "at the next stop sign, to the right".

Stop signs are all over the place in Costa Rican cities, but they're not always obeyed. First of all, most people don't come to a complete stop. To those who would point out that many people in the US execute a "rolling stop", let me just submit that a Costa Rican rolling stop is more roll than it is stop.

Also, even when cars are indeed forced to stop, they will only stop after having crept far beyond the stop sign to ensure visibility around the corner of adjacent buildings and parked cars. Often this is necessary for visibility, but for the most part it's out of habit. When driving in Costa Rica, you must be aware of this, so as not to be alarmed, while also being defensive of people who indeed are encroaching on you at an intersection. Easier said than done.

The most difficult part about stop signs in Costa Rica is that they are often accompanied by stop lights or "semáforos". This, digo yo, seems like a very deadly combination. First of all, if you obey the stop sign (which I assume most foreigners do out of habit) while you have a green light, you could get rear-ended by someone who obeys the green light. If you're a pedestrian, you could assume that a car with a stop sign is going to stop while you cross the street, but if that car also has a green light, it will likely keep on going. The picture featured above shows an intersection where I tried to cross in front of a stop sign without knowing there was a green light for crossing traffic. Luckily I noticed what was going on, narrowly avoiding a rough encounter with a moving automobile.

Aside from the contradiction of having both signs and lights, another problem is that the street lights are largely invisible to pedestrians. Imagine a street light that hangs down into the middle of a very small, crammed intersection. You can only see one of the four sides of the street light, and you can only see that one side if you're looking almost directly overhead.

As I was driving around Heredia with a Costa Rican friend, I had a hard time running through the stop signs, even after she assured me that it's the street light you must obey. I was finally able to get rid of that silly impulse to actually stop at stop signs, but I couldn't help but wonder why on earth there are still stop signs where stop lights are implemented.

I'm open to explanations (but I have to admit that I'm erring on the skeptical side).