Costa Rican Spanish

with much gusto

2010-11-11T17:51:00.000-08:00

What's striking about the way Spanish speakers say "you're welcome" is how certain countries will almost exclusively use one phrase over all the others. In English we can respond to thanksgiving in all sorts of ways, both formally and informally. "No problem" or "forget about it" would be typical responses, even though they don't exactly mean "you're welcome". If you tally up all the acceptable responses that could be used all over the United States without confusion, you'd probably have dozens of them.

In Costa Rica, on the other hand, I have only heard "con mucho gusto" as a response to "gracias". It's essentially the Spanish equivalent of the English "it's my pleasure". Costa Ricans will certainly understand "de nada", "no hay de qué", and "no hay porqué", but they aren't likely to use them.

De nada is the most ubiquitous of all the aforementioned forms, probably because of its prominence in large countries like Mexico and Spain. "No hay porqué" is largely confined to Argentina (at least in my experience).

Cabecera

2010-10-30T04:59:00.000-07:00

Perhaps the most common Spanish word for pillow is almohada, but Costa Ricans tend to use cabecera for the pillow that you sleep on. This word should not be confused with cabezazo, which is a header (when you strike the soccer ball with your head).

A funny expression that I picked up in Costa Rica was planchar la oreja, or iron the ear, which one would say before going to bed.

Example: "Tengo sueño. Voy a planchar la oreja."

Converting your laptop keyboard to Spanish

2010-09-04T18:30:00.000-07:00

I just got a new Dell laptop and have been unimpressed by the lack of the numeric keyboard, which I could access on my old HP laptop by pressing the fn button. I figured it was time for me to change my keyboard settings to Spanish, instead of using the numeric keyboard and alt functions for Spanish characters. So far it has worked out well not having to deal with the several keystrokes necessary to toggle between different keyboard settings.

In Windows 7 I went to my Control Panel and clicked on "Clock, Language, and Region." From there click on "Change keyboards and other input methods." Then, a new window will pop up with the proper "Language and Keyboards" tab selected. Click on "Change Keyboards." From here you will be able to add a language if it isn't already installed. My laptop came with only English (US) installed. Click on "Add" to find your language. Once you've done that, click on "Apply." Then, click on the "Language Bar" tab to change where the language bar shows up. This bar will help you switch from English to Spanish and from Spanish to English.

Once you've switched to a Spanish keyboard, you can write 'ñ' by clicking on the ';' key. You can also type an accented vowel by typing ´ on your Spanish keyboard (shown as '[{' on your English keyboard) plus the desired vowel.

Teaching Spanish

2010-09-04T17:29:00.000-07:00

I started teaching teaching Spanish on the west side of Chicago two weeks ago. While I am overwhelmed by the challenges of teaching 450 students from grades ranging from K to 8th and everything in between, I am excited to engage students in the Spanish language. The most difficult aspect of teaching, aside from general classroom management problems, will be the commitment to using the target language in the classroom. Yesterday my curriculum specialist warned me that students won't have the patience to sit through a class in which I'm speaking Spanish the entire time. While that's a possibility, I think it will depend entirely on my delivery.

If I can scaffold my lessons (provide adequate support for newly introduced material) so that what I'm presenting is given the proper context for understanding, students will soon catch up with the material and extract meaning from the spoken language. For example, since I am fortunate enough to have an LCD projector I can use images in a PowerPoint presentation to give context clues that--along with prior knowledge of Spanish and sense of cognates--will allow students to grasp new vocabulary AND interpret the meaning of complete sentences.

While I don't plan on building a Spanish curriculum that breaks any ground in language instruction, I would at least like to resist the temptation of teaching Spanish as a purely academic pursuit taught in English. Memorizing verb conjugations and whacking piñatas on Cinco de Mayo is one way of getting exposed to the Spanish language, but it's insufficient for true proficiency in the language. To speak a language you need to practice speaking the language in as natural of a setting as possible. That setting must be immersive!

I must admit that I have an intense fear of mediocrity. I don't want it for myself and I don't want it for my students. I feel that if I cave in and do what's most expedient for myself in the short term, I will give my students average instruction that will prevent them from closing the academic achievement gap with their peers in more affluent communities.

Sure, two Spanish classes per week won't turn low-performing students into high-performing ones, but it certainly wouldn't hurt. Put more convincingly, studies show that students with foreign language instruction perform better in literacy and math. This is more a stream of consciousness type of post, so I don't have the time or the will to back that up at this time, but let's just take it as a give for now (at least until I can write a more complete post about it later).

If I can help out my students' overall academic performance by teaching them the four main skills of listening, speaking, reading, and writing in Spanish, I am going to take advantage of that opportunity the best way I know how. I don't want to settle for the mindless regurgitation of vocabulary and verb forms, which won't be retained and won't be transferable to other realms of their academic and personal lives.

I'll spend my Labor Day weekend trying to improve my lesson plans for upcoming weeks. Maybe I will end up caving in and take it down a notch on my Spanish-to-English ratio in class, but I won't go down without a fight.

"Pueblo pequeño, infierno grande"

2010-04-25T16:07:00.000-07:00

"Small town, big hell", many people say in small towns in Costa Rica. While most Costa Ricans I know live in small towns on purpose, nearly all admit that the chisme--or gossip--can be relentless. I learned this firsthand. (Although, luckily, for nothing bad.) It was hard to do much of anything in my rural village of 250 people, or "in town" where about 6,000 people lived, without everyone knowing about it. It might sound pretty harmless, but if you are betting on spending a lifetime in one of these towns, the pressure to maintain healthy relationships and at least a guise of a respectable lifestyle (however your neighbors define it) can be a lot to handle. That's not to say that you have to be perfect, but any slip-up can be committed to public memory for a good part of your life. So, things you do--good, bad, and otherwise--tend to make their way back to you. It's a haunting concept for some, a kind of surveillance from which there is no escaping.

Anyway, small towns have a lot of the same problems as big cities--and verse visa--but only in a small town can a large percentage of the population be privy to your most intimate personal details (or at least have their own version of them). The end result is the perception that sometimes it is a "big hell". However, for most rural folk, these moments simply come with the territory of living in a pleasant, otherwise relaxing place.

Sorry, Dora, it ain't a "mochila"

2010-03-13T15:56:00.000-08:00

On a few occasions I was subjected to episodes of "Dora la Explordora", which--unlike the English title--actually rhymes. I always preferred the name "Dora la Explotadora". Anyway, in one episode I recall an ingenious song with the following lyrics:

La mochila,
la mochila,
la mochila,
la mochila,
la mochila,
la mochila,
la mochila,
la mochila,
la mochila!

Costa Ricans understand mochila as backpack, but I have most often heard the word salveque. While both words can be used interchangeably in Costa Rica, the most local word is salveque.

Here are some other local words that are used more often than their Spanish alternatives, most of which are more common in the Spanish-speaking world:

Costa Rican Word/Common Spanish Alternative/Translation

abanico/ ventilador/ fan (box or ceiling)
enojado/ enfadado (Spain)/ angry
birra/ cerveza/ beer
boñiga/ estiércol/ manure
bomba/ gasolinera/ gas station
cabecera/ almohada/ pillow
calzones (not the food)/ ropa interior/ underwear (bottoms)
carro/ coche, auto/ car
faja/ cinturón/ belt (clothing)
largo/ lejos/ far, far away
macho/ rubio/ blond
zancudo/ mosquito/ mosquito
olores/ especias/ spices
pajilla/ pajita/ drinking straw
queque/ torta, pastel/ cake
rabo/ cola/ tail of an animal
tiquete/ boleto/ ticket

Water in Costa Rica

2010-02-25T14:35:00.000-08:00

Agua, one of Costa Rica's most valuable assets, comes in many forms. Water falls from the sky, mixes with clay, springs from the ground, and falls from cliffs. Here is some of the most useful Costa Rican terminology related to water:

Rain
llovizna - drizzle or sprinkle

pel de gato - very light rain

aguacero - torrential downpour

baldazo - literally a big bucket (a storm that's raining buckets)

Mud
barro - mud

tierra - soil, earth

arcilla - clay

Natural spring
naciente (f) - natural spring (a word that appears to be almost exclusive to Costa Rica)

manantial (m) - natural spring

Waterfall
catarata - waterfall (cascada is rarely used)

Well
pozo - well

poza - deep swimming hole in a river

bomba - water pump for a well (among many other things, if you care to click on the link)

Others
aguado - watery, dilute

echar agua - conceding position to an opponent to give the impression of weakness, sandbagging

aguadulce - popular drink made of hot water and brown sugar

aguachinarse - to lose one's crops due to excessive rain, to contract a fungal infection from excessive wetness

agua potable - potable water

acueducto - aqueduct, potable water project

agua del tubo - tap water (agua de la llave is more common in South America)

"Momses and Dadses"

2010-02-24T10:52:00.000-08:00

In rural parts of Costa Rica, people often use a double plural form for certain nouns. That is, they attach an extra plural suffix to a noun where a plural suffix already exists.

To pluralize a word in Spanish you either add an '-s' or an '-es', an 'es' being necessary when the noun ends in a consonant. In Costa Rica I have heard the double plural for 'papases', with an '-s-es' ending.

In this context there is a possible reasonable explanation: If the regular plural form 'papás' refers to one set of parents, 'papases' could conceivably refer to a group of parents.

Regardless of the merits of this armchair etymology, the double plural appears to extend to other nouns whose last syllable is the tonic syllable. For example, I have heard 'mamases' and 'bebeses' (coming from 'bebé'), which contain the double plural, but cannot be rationalized as a group of plural elements.

Double plurals have arisen in other languages, but they usually occur when the former plural suffix becomes improductive. In Spanish, the '-s' and '-es' suffixes are entirely valid standing alone to pluralize their respective nouns, so I don't recommend using the double plural form. But it's sure fun to listen to :)

Word of the Day: Palenque

2010-02-22T14:28:00.000-08:00

Palenque can mean any number of things in Spanish, from a fence post (or tethering post) to a cockfight. My first exposure to the word was when I was studying slavery in the New World, in which context it means a society of marooned (escaped) slaves.

In Costa Rica, however, palenque is almost exclusively reserved as a generic term for indigenous reservations.

In Costa Rica:

Palenque = reserva indígena

Vergazo

2010-01-27T22:22:00.000-08:00

Costa Ricans will often use the word vergazo to mean a strong punch with a fist. This is a colloquial term you might hear in a rural cantina. Keep in mind that the word verga means 'dick'. So, this isn't exactly church language. (Of course, punching people isn't exactly church behavior either.)

Word of the Day: Tiquete

2010-01-22T08:52:00.000-08:00

Tiquete is the most common Costa Rican word for ticket. Most people will understand the word boleto, especially in context, but whenever it's a question of a bus ticket or an plane ticket, you'll almost always hear tiquete.

Note: In Costa Rica people will also use the term pasaje, which means 'passage' and can be used interchangeably with tiquete in most cases. One exception would be when you're referring directly to the physical ticket itself, in which case tiquete would be most appropriate.

Va a llover, it's raining

2010-01-21T20:47:00.000-08:00

Often when it rained in the rural area where I lived, someone would say "va a llover". It doesn't take much knowledge of Spanish to recognize this as a future tense. So, why would people say that it's going to rain right when it starts raining? It's anyone's guess, but here's mine:

This phrase is likely a projection of continued rain throughout the day. If it starts raining, and the outlook for the foreseeable hours in the day look grim, people will predict a considerable amount of rainfall, using only a three-word prhase.

I can respect this type of communication. People tend to shorten language when they're among people of similar background. Heck, why not use a few words when that's all you need to get your point across? With that said, I went through several months of frustration because of my relative lack of local understanding. For example, people would always tell me that I need to go para arriba [parriba] or para abajo [pabajo] to go where I needed to go. To me, up or down didn't mean much because I was unfamiliar with the relative altitudes of different villages. What seemed obvious to all the locals was a great mystery to me.

But with time I learned the subtleties of language in my rural corner of Costa Rica. Eventually, instead of saying that the rain will probably last till tomorrow morning, I learned to kick back and say "va a llover". And it felt good.

Word of the Day: Estudiar

2009-11-25T07:43:00.001-08:00

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

2009-08-09T21:20:00.001-07:00

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

2009-08-02T12:29:00.000-07:00

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

2009-07-30T07:24:00.000-07:00

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

2009-07-18T10:35:00.000-07:00

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

2009-07-17T13:16:00.000-07:00

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

2009-07-14T19:33:00.000-07:00

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

2009-06-21T07:53:00.000-07:00

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

2009-06-20T10:44:00.000-07:00

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

2009-06-13T20:31:00.000-07:00

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

2009-06-09T09:40:00.000-07:00

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

2009-05-26T14:32:00.001-07:00

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

2009-05-25T18:06:00.000-07:00

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

2009-05-24T20:49:00.000-07:00

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

2009-04-05T14:05:00.000-07:00

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

2009-03-31T18:11:00.001-07:00

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

2009-03-28T10:44:00.000-07:00

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

2009-03-28T09:53:00.000-07:00

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 .

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)
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.
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.
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.
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.
'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.
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)
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.
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.
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

2009-03-27T08:44:00.000-07:00

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"

2009-03-25T16:24:00.000-07:00

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

2009-03-23T16:57:00.000-07:00

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

2009-03-22T12:44:00.000-07:00

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

2009-03-22T09:37:00.000-07:00

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

Word of the Day: Guaro

2009-03-21T12:06:00.000-07:00

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

2009-02-06T16:29:00.000-08:00

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

2009-02-05T18:25:00.000-08:00

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

2009-02-04T15:57:00.000-08:00

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

2009-01-31T19:36:00.001-08:00

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

2009-01-24T18:24:00.001-08:00

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

2009-01-23T13:18:00.000-08:00

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

Word of the Day: Rancho

2009-01-22T21:27:00.000-08:00

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

2009-01-21T21:13:00.000-08:00

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

2009-01-21T20:06:00.000-08:00

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).

Word of the Day: Jupa

2008-12-30T21:50:00.001-08:00

Costa Ricans will often say "jupa" instead of head in informal situations.

Other informal names for parts of the body are as follows:

nariz (nose) --> trompa
trasero (butt) --> culo (vulgar)
pies (feet) --> cachos (which also means horns/antlers)
boca (mouth) --> pico (which literally means beak, but can also be an informal--and vulgar--way to say penis)

I'll save more for later.

Word of the Day: Despedida de Soltera

2008-12-17T18:22:00.000-08:00

Sorry, ladies. This Costa Rican equivalent of the bachelorette party isn't a drunken night out on the town with fallic-ridden props. These despedida de soltera parties are quite tame...so they say.

Word of the Day: Quemado

2008-12-16T10:22:00.001-08:00

Besides meaning 'burned' or 'burnt', quemado is also a game of tag (the verb quemar meaning 'to tag').

Another use of the term is for burnt (or burning) trash. Just about everywhere in Costa Rica, except for the larger cities (Costa Rica is still largely a rural society), people burn their trash because of either habit, lack of garbage pickup, or both. If you have ever smelled burnt trash, you won't forget it. When plastic burns it gives off toxic dioxins that are--as far as I know--proven carcinogens. Even in some of the more open environments, the burning of trash can be smelled all around town (remember, these are small towns I'm talking about).

Anyway, back to the point...In Costa Rica you might hear someone say "huele a quemado", which basically means "it smells like something is burning". Whenever I've heard the term quemado for when something is literally burning, it has always been in this context of burning trash.

Word of the Day: Pelo de Gato

2008-12-15T10:44:00.000-08:00

Pelo de gato is a term Costa Ricans use to describe a very light, soft rain.

Word of the Day: Dormilón

2008-12-14T10:23:00.000-08:00

Dormilón is a Costa Rican word that means "sleepy head", as in someone who likes to sleep, sleeps too much, or tends to sleep in. This can be dormilona for a woman, which is also a very common weed throughout Costa Rica. It's pretty neat because its leaves appear to shrivel up upon touching them. This defense mechanism--along with its sharp spines--protects it from ruminant animals and makes it a very successful species.

Word of the Day: Cabecera

2008-12-13T12:03:00.001-08:00

Cabecera is Costa Rican for 'pillow', as in the one you use to sleep on in bed. The more common Spanish term 'almohada' would likely be understood as well, but be aware that most people just say cabecera.

Word of the Day: Estudiar

2008-12-01T22:44:00.001-08:00

Estudiar means 'to study', but in Costa Rica it's used more broadly to mean 'to read'. People would often say to someone trying to talk to me while I read, "Déjelo, ¿no ves que está estudiando"? (Leave him alone--don't you see that he's reading?) Confused by this reference at first, I used to respond, "Don't worry, I'm just reading", which was always met with odd looks.

Word of the Day: Diantres

2008-11-30T21:15:00.000-08:00

¡Diantres! is what you might hear an old woman say out of surprise in Costa Rica. It's a euphemism for diablos or demonios, and is the etiquette-equivalent of saying 'heck' instead of 'hell' in English.

I lived with a religious family in Costa Rica, and the mother would often say diantres. After I while I had to know what that really meant. Then, after knowing that it meant 'devils' or 'demons', I started blaming everything on "los diantres". Whenever I couldn't find something in my room, I would decry the mischevity of those darned "diantres" that were hiding my shit. The family got a kick out of it.

Word of the Day: Picado

2008-11-29T11:03:00.000-08:00

Picado is the past participle of the verb 'picar', which can mean a number of different things in Spanish. In Costa Rica it is used in this participle form as an adjective to mean 'chopped'.

For example, if you help out a Costa Rican in the kitchen, she might ask you for chile picado, which just means chillies (or peppers, depending on what type of chile--picante or dulce--it is) chopped into small pieces.

Another popular use of picado is to mean 'scrambled', as in 'scrambled eggs'. It took me a while to start asking for 'huevo picado' instead of 'huevos revueltos'. (Please note that the singular 'huevo picado' is what I typically hear in restaurants, perhaps because in Costa Rica scrambled eggs are not a main course, but a side dish for a Costa Rican breakfast.)

Word of the Day: Queque

2008-11-28T14:48:00.000-08:00

Queque is a word for 'cake' that is very similar to its English translation. Many Latin Americans outside of Costa Rica will correct you when you say queque, instead preferring the more Spanish word pastel or torta.

In Chile they use the word queque for cake, but also use it for buttocks. Whenever I tell Costa Ricans this, they think it's kind of goofy. Well, it might be, but I always remind them:

"Uds. (los ticos), sí, tienen razón porque un queque no siempre viene partido"

"You Costa Ricans are right because a cake doesn't always come separated into pieces."

I'm not sure how well this translates, but I always got a good laugh out of it.

Word of the Day: Lavado

2008-11-27T12:52:00.000-08:00

Lavado, which literally means 'washed', can mean 'broke' (out of money) in Costa Rica. You can also say 'limpio' (Spanish for the adjective 'clean'), which also means you're completely out of money.

Word of the Day: Filo

2008-11-26T17:07:00.000-08:00

Filo is Spanish for 'edge', as in the edge of a blade. In Costa Rica people sometimes use the word to mean hunger, instead of the standard 'hambre'.

Word of the Day: Arepa

2008-11-25T12:30:00.000-08:00

An arepa is pancake-like Costa Rican flapjack made with flower, eggs, milk and/or sour cream, and sugar.

I find arepas tastier than American pancakes. They're creamier--and less chalky--than pancakes and don't need syrup to taste good. They are often served with the mid-afternoon café.

Word of the Day: Malanga

2008-11-24T07:06:00.000-08:00

Malanga is a gray, starchy tuber that takes on a soft, gooey texture when cooked. It is very similar to tiquisque (pronounced [tiquisqui]), which fits the same description and is much more common in Costa Rica than the malanga. Both vegetables taste great and are a good change-up to the more conventional potato.

Perhaps more common than all the aforementioned tubers--especially in the rural areas where it's grown--is yuca, which is gooey like the malanga and tiquisque, but much more fibrous.

Word of the Day: Manteca

2008-11-23T08:49:00.000-08:00

Manteca is essentially 'lard'. It's not exclusive to Costa Rica, but foreigners in the country will quickly take notice of this fatty staple. Costa Ricans will fry just about anything and everything in Manteca. Manteca has traditionally come from animal fat, but has recently comes from the next worst thing, palm oil. Just like animal fat, the majority of the fat in palm oil is saturated, which is bad for your heart. Costa Ricans will hear occasional news stories encouraging people to make the switch to vegetable oil, but manteca is well ingrained into the culture.

While I am often critical of manteca, it's only fair to point out that many Americans (myself included) have a diet that's much worse than the typical Costa Rican diet.

Word of the Day: Maicero

2008-11-22T22:15:00.000-08:00

Maicero comes from the word for corn, maíz, and literally means 'corn producer'. However, it is used as a pejorative term for a rural campesino, meaning 'hillbilly' or 'country bumpkin'. The connotation is very negative, essentially like 'hick' and 'redneck' in the English language, but without the playful benignness that is attributed to these words as a result of recent popular culture. (Will anyone doubt that the "Blue Collar Comedy" guys have made being a hick a lot hipper?)

Word of the Day: Apretar

2008-11-21T14:56:00.001-08:00

Literally meaning 'to tighten' or 'to squeeze', apretar comes to mean 'to kiss one's boyfriend or girlfriend' in Costa Rican Spanish.

Apretar is often mispronounced in the present indicative form.

The verb, in standard form, calls for a stem change ('-e-' to '-ie-') when the stem is the tonic syllable. For example, the third person singluar form would be 'aprieta', or 'aprietan' in the third person plural form. However, many ticos will say 'apreta' and 'apretan' for these verb forms, respetively. This is a common mistake found in other countries as well.

Apretado in Costa Rica can also signify a homemade frozen treat made from a base of either water or powdered milk, and one of many flavors of syrup. The contents are placed in a plastic sandwich baggie and then frozen. To eat it you simply bite a small opening from one of the two points in the bottom of the plastic bag, and suck out the contents from the makeshift teat. This apretado treat is called chiribisco [spelling?] in many parts of Costa Rica.

Word of the Day: Jama

2008-11-20T14:13:00.000-08:00

Jama is Costa Rican for 'food'. Of course, the standard comida also works, but ticos will often informally refer to food as jama.

Mothers will yell to their kids:

¡Está la jama! (Food's on the table!)

Ticos will sometimes, but not as often, use the verb jamar instead of comer.

Word of the Day: Largo

2008-11-19T21:10:00.001-08:00

In Costa Rica largo not only means 'long', but it's also a very common word to mean 'far' or 'far away' (instead of using the more common Spanish word, 'lejos'.)

So instead of saying "la iglesia está muy lejos" (The church is very far away) you could say "la iglesia está muy largo", which would mean the exact same thing to a Costa Rican. (Of course, if a Costa Rican frowns upon this usage, it won't mean the exact same thing to him because of his negative feelings toward it.)

Notice that in my example iglesia, which is femenine, does not change largo--which is typically an adjective--into its femenine form. That's because in this case largo isn't an adjective, but an adverb, which is gender neutral. Essentially, largo assimilates to the part of speech of the word it's replacing, lejos (a genderless adverb).

Rapu Davi (Pura Vida),

Tomás

Word of the Day: Fritear

2008-11-18T18:59:00.000-08:00

Fritear is a popular way to say the verb 'to fry'. The correct Spanish verb is actually 'freir', but many make the mistake of using the past participle of this verb, 'frito', as the base morpheme for the verb itself.

This non-standard way of speaking is also used in other areas of the Spanish-speaking world. I have heard the verb 'fritar' in other countries, which comes to mean the same thing. It's just that Costa Ricans will most commonly add an '-ear' ending to new, made-up verbs--whereas other cultures tend to simply add an '-ar' suffix.

To use a personal example, if I had a love interest at the time in Costa Rica, a friend of mine would always ask me "are you going to [insert girl's name here]-ear today"? (The actual pronunciation of the suffix is most commonly [-iar] because of the Costa Rican tendency to say the 'e' like an 'i' when forming a dipthong with an 'a' or an 'o', the two other "strong vowels" in Spanish.)

Word of the Day: Yodo

2008-11-17T19:18:00.000-08:00

Yodo is the Spanish word for 'iodine', but in Costa Rica it's also slang for 'coffee' because of both liquids' deep, dark color.

Pura Birra,

Tom

Word of the Day: Guanacaste

2008-11-16T08:53:00.001-08:00

Guanacaste:

1. One of Costa Rica's seven provinces.

2. Costa Rica's national tree.

Guanacaste Day: A Costa Rican holiday that commemorates the annexation of Guanacaste to Costa Rica on July 24th, 1824.

Word of the Day: Maña

2008-11-15T10:10:00.000-08:00

Maña is a noun meaning 'habit' or 'custom' that often has a negative connotation, perhaps more like 'vice' (vicio).

Consider the following example:

Mi hijo tiene la maña de ir a la cantina cuando debería estar estudiando.

Translation:

My son has the bad habit of going to the local bar when he should be studying.

Some people will say that maña is to be used with animals, whereas humans have costumbres. While this may be more "proper" in a certain sense, you will hear ticos speak of people who have mañas (or who are mañoso, which can mean anything from mischevious to stubborn) all the time.

This is a tough one to grasp. Please leave any questions or comments that arise.

Pura Vida

Word of the Day: Biodigestor

2008-11-14T16:02:00.000-08:00

This isn't an exclusively Costa Rican word, but it's relevant to this blog because biodigesters are quite common in rural areas in Costa Rica and I myself managed a biogas project in Santa Fe de Guatuso, a small town of 250 people in the "Zona Norte" countryside.

A biodigestor is any manmade contraption that uses the anaerobic (withou the presence of oxygen) decomposition of organic materials to make biogas, which is largely methane, for either cooking, heating, or electricity. In layman's terms, un biodigestor takes poop and turns it into gas.

If you're feeling extra ambitious, check out the biogas project that the Santa Fe women executed or the biodigester design they used.

¡Pura Vida!

Word of the Day: Matricidio

2008-11-13T08:06:00.001-08:00

Ticos will sometimes jokingly refer to matrimonio as matricidio.

To the layperson, this implies an association between homicide and marriage. Marriage--when not done right--can kill your ambition, your sense of humor, your personal finances et al. I'm single and always have been. This is just what I hear...

Pura Vida ;)

Word of the Day: Salado

2008-11-12T11:25:00.000-08:00

Salado, meaning 'salty' in most situations, is used in Costa Rica to mean 'unlucky' or 'unfortunate'. Costa Ricans will use salado(a) to lightly tease someone who missed out on a good opportunity. In this sense, it's sort of like saying "too bad" or "tough luck" in a sarcastic way.

The concept of luck is very strong in Costa Rican culture. Ticos will not only employ salado(a) for bad luck, but will also employ the word dichoso(a) for good fortune. (The noun 'dicha' means 'joy', but when put in adjective form in Costa Rica it effectively means 'lucky'.) "Qué dichoso", someone might say when you tell him you're going on vacation.

Word of the Day: Ride

2008-11-11T17:33:00.000-08:00

If spelled "phonetically" in Spanish this word would be 'raid'. Since there isn't a good word in Spanish for the English noun 'ride', as in getting a ride to school, Costa Ricans simply borrow the English word to mean the same thing. For example, someone may use the imperative "deme un ride"!

Costa Ricans will not say ride to mean a trip in a motor vehicle--as in "it was a bumpy ride from Ciudad Quesada to Guatuso". For this they will most likely say viaje.

If you want to use only Spanish words to ask someone if he wants a ride, simply ask:

"[Ud.] Quiere que lo lleve a San José"?

Translation:

"Do you want me to take you to San José?"

or

"Do you want a ride to San José?"

Word of the Day: Viejo Verde

2008-11-10T19:49:00.000-08:00

Viejo verde is a common label for a man who chases younger women. ('Viejo' of course meaning old, and 'verde' meaning 'green' or--in this case--'young'.) To be fair, a woman can also be a vieja verde, but it is much more typical for the man to be older in a relationship. It is not uncommon for a 30-year-old man to date, and eventually marry, a 20-year-old woman. However, if the age difference becomes much more exaggerated than this, people will call the man a viejo verde, the equivalent of "cradle-robber" in American English. This label of viejo verde is also valid when an older man's admiration of a young woman is verbalized but not necessarily acted on. I know many old Costa Ricans who would say sexually suggestive things about young women, who were then gently called viejo verde.

Another way to say viejo verde in Costa Rica is sátiro.

Word of the Day: Vacaciones!

2008-11-07T23:33:00.001-08:00

I'm in Knoxville, Tennessee for the weekend. I'll continue posting the Word of the Day starting Monday.

Pura Vida,

Thomas

Costa Rican Spanish Word of the Day: Diino

2008-11-06T19:41:00.000-08:00

I have a hard time even calling this a word, but it might be worth noting that [dino] with a slightly prolonged 'i' sound will informally refer to the Spanish divino. A woman in my community once told me that a painting was "super diino". As any normal human being would do, I gave her a funny look. When I asked her what the heck that was, all the other women in the room were in disbelief that I hadn't heard the word before.

Gauging their reaction, maybe it's a more common word than I might think. Maybe it's just a word that women use amongst themselves. Also, perhaps it's a word that is used in other countries, but Costa Rica is the only place where I was able to earn a woman's trust enough to hear her use such informal language with me.

Either way, it's pretty messed up. I wouldn't try using this word. You might get some funny looks.

Peace,

Thomas

Costa Rican Spanish Word of the Day: Si Dios Quiere

2008-11-05T12:55:00.000-08:00

Literally translated as "if God wants" (or the more idiomatically correct "God willing" in English), 'si Dios quiere' is an expression that has permeated Costa Rican language and culture.

This expression often throws foreigners through a loop, whether they're believers or not. Many ticos will start or end the future projection of just about anything with 'si Dios quiere' (or 'si Dios permite'). While most people wouldn't have a problem with this, some ticos go a step further to add it onto your sentence when you--wittingly or not--leave it out.

I recall a specific instance when I was telling my neighbor about my graduate school plans. He nodded his head in agreement and said "Sí, si Dios quiere". If it were simply an involuntary cultural reaction I wouldn't have thought much of it, but in this case he was clearly calling attention to my omission of God in the equation.

I am personally not critical of the expression. (Even if I were, my quibbling would be nothing short of futile.) However, others have argued that the pervasiveness of the expression is a sign of--if not an actual cause of--an overreliance on faith and hope instead of self-determination in tico culture. In order to capture this attitude, I wrote the following parody for an underground Peace Corps Costa Rica fake newspaper, "The Times of Tico", which I authored while in the country: "Son's Laziness Mistaken for the Will of God".

Costa Rican Spanish Word of the Day: Gallina de Palo

2008-11-04T07:45:00.000-08:00

A common Costa Rican nickname for the iguana is gallina de palo, essentially meaning "chicken of the tree". (The resemblance to the popular brand of tuna in the US is a mere coincidence.) Actually, gallina specifically means 'hen' and 'palo' most formally means 'stick'. However, Costa Ricans will commonly use the word 'palo' whenever talking about a tree. When I first arrived in Costa Rica, I was taken on a walk in the woods and was met with some great confusion when someone was trying to point out a "stick" about 50 feet off the ground. The "stick" turned out to be a pretty big one, firmly planted into the ground!

Anyway, they call the iguana gallina de palo because it tastes a lot like chicken. Yum!

Todavía en la lucha,

Tom

Costa Rican Spanish Word of the Day: Cachos

2008-11-03T06:50:00.000-08:00

Cachos is the most common way to say 'horns' or 'antlers' in Costa Rica. (In other Spanish-speaking countries, cuerno is the more common term.) To "ponerse los cachos" is to cheat on your significant other. The verb can also be used in a transitive sense, as in the following sentence: "Mi novia me puso los cachos." (My girlfriend cheated on me.)

In Costa Rica bakeries will sell pastries called "cachos". They're flaky, cone-like pastries filled with dulce de leche, a product made by slowly boiling milk and sugar until it caramelizes. I was always a sucker for these cachos. When I would go into a bakery to get a cacho, the owner would always have a good "cachos" joke for me. Of course, she was especially proud of her jokes because I was actually dating her daughter...

Siempre en la lucha,

Tom

Costa Rican Spanish Word of the Day: ¡Aca!

2008-11-02T17:37:00.000-08:00

¡Aca! is an interjection that Costa Rican farmers will use to yell at their cows. They simply scream it over an over again when trying to herd their cattle.

Perhaps it isn't actually an interjection, which is a word that is "interjected" in a sentence without a market grammatical connection with the other parts within. Perhaps ¡Aca! actually does originate from an actual command, making it a verb--or maybe even shorthand for a longer sentence. I will try to get to the bottom of this etymological issue when I go to Costa Rica in January.

Roy Yo Soy

2008-07-18T06:22:00.000-07:00

The following poem was written by my aunt Lola in Miami, Florida. She is a decorated and prolific writer. Upon hearing that I had a new website that captured local language in the US, she was suddenly inspired to write a poem that captures the "pochismo" Spanglish that she hears on a daily basis in Miami. So, here it is. It's a fun adaptation from a Dr. Seuss classic. Enjoy.

Roy Yo Soy

By: Dolores Sendler

(Adapted from GREEN EGGS AND HAM – By: Dr. Seuss)

I am Sam

Sam I am.

Y yo soy Roy

Roy yo soy.

That Roy-yo-soy.

That Roy-yo-soy.

I do not like that Roy-yo-soy.

Do you like bistec con pan?

Do you like it Roy-yo-soy?

I do not like bistec con pan

I do not like it Sam-I-am.

Do you like it aquí o ahí?

Do you like it with ají?

No me gusta aquí o ahí

I do not like it with ají.

I do not like bistec con pan

I do not like it Sam-I-am.

Do you like it with mostaza?

¿En tu casa?

¿Con mi raza?

No me gusta con mostaza.

Ni con ají ni con mi raza.

I do not like bistec con pan!

No me gusta Sam-I-am!

Would you like it in a plato?

With a dog or with a gato?

Not in a plato.

Not with a gato.

Not with a dog.

Not with a hog.

I would not like it with mostaza.

In my house or in your casa.

I would not like it here or there

I would not like it anywhere!

I do not like bistec con pan!

No me gusta Sam-I-am!

Would you? Could you?

En el Cayo?

On a donkey or a caballo?

I will not, could not,

en el Cayo.

On a burro.

Or a caballo!

So Long, Diphthong!

2008-07-13T17:44:00.000-07:00

In Costa Rica I have noticed the elimination of diphthongs in certain words. For example, the word achiote (crushed annato seeds made into a paste for red food coloring) is most often pronounced [achote], effectively cutting off the '-io-' diphthong.

This isn't the only strange vowel-related phenomenon I've encountered. I wrote about the weakening of strong vowels in my article, "Not the King's Spanish". Check it out.

Pura Vida,

Thomas

Piña

2008-05-22T20:21:00.000-07:00

Sure, piña means pineapple in Costa Rica, but it has a very different use as well. If you go to some rural fiestas in Costa Rica you can almost always buy tamales. They'll come in pairs, the two tamales wrapped together with twine. This is una piña de tamales.

I learned this one the hard way. I was at some fiestas and ordered a tamal. The server asked me if I wanted a "piña". After giving her my best look of disbelief I repeated that I wanted un tamal. After realizing why I was confused, she explained to me that tamales are usually served in piñas, or pairs of tamales.

Man, did I feel zampaguavas!

Consonant Assimilation

2008-05-11T06:39:00.000-07:00

This linguistic phenomenon is not limited to Spanish, and certainly not to Costa Rica, but it nonetheless rears its ugly head in interesting ways in Costa Rica. To catch you up to speed, there are several cases in Spanish when consonants change their sounds based on the letter that follows. (We're not just talking about letters, but also phonemes, but I'll just call them letters for the sake of simplicity.) Consider the following examples:

The word 'rasgo' means physical characteristic or trait. The 's', which is normally an unvoiced sibilant, becomes a voiced sibilant like the 'z' in the English word 'zoo' because the 'g' that follows is a voiced consonant. This is consonant assimilation.

Another common example of consonant assimilation is the assimilation of 'n', an alveolar nasal consonant, to an 'm', a bilabial nasal consonant. In the noun phrase 'un barco' (a boat) the 'n', which is normally formed by pressing your tongue against your alveolar ridge just behind your upper front teeth, becomes a bilabial 'm' because the consonant the follows ('b') is also bilabial.

Anyway, I was prompted to think of this consonant assimilation when I came across a sign outside of the movie theater in Ciudad Quesada de San Carlos. The sign read 'Niños del Honbre', which according to the proper spelling of the words would be 'Niños del Hombre'. This was not the first time I had seen this misspelling, but it was perhaps the third time, and was what compelled me to consider it something more than a typo (or a 'write-o' or a 'placing letters on the sign outside of a movie theater...-o'). I can only explain it as a hypercorrection certain native speakers employ when they hear an 'm' but think they're supposed to write an 'n'. In Spanish you will always write 'un barco', even though there's an 'm' sound. On the other hand, within single words, you can NEVER have an 'n' before a 'b' or a 'p'. It's a rule. (We also have this rule in English; e.g., incoherent, but then imperfection.) So, when the 'n' is separated from the 'b' or 'p' by a word break, then it remains an 'n', but within the same word as a 'b' or a 'p', it simply can't be a written 'n'. My conjecture is that whichever case rings truer in the mind of a less-than-perfect speller is the one that is applied to the other case. It makes perfect sense to me that a Spanish speaker would sooner misspell 'hombre' than he would 'un', the latter of which is as essential to Spanish as 'a' or 'an' is to English. If this is true, then the misspelling of 'hombre' should be seen as a hypercorrection of the 'n' remaining an 'n' in the case of 'un barco' where it is pronounced like an 'm'.

In case you want another case of consonant assimilation in Spanish, here it is:

In the word 'banco' the 'n' takes on the sound of the 'ng' in the English word 'gong'. This happens because the 'n' will always assimilate to a velar 'c', 'k', or 'g' by becoming a velar 'ng'.

Pura Vida

Inside-Out

2008-04-16T07:39:00.000-07:00

In rural Costa Rica the words 'inside' and 'outside' provide just one example of a set of vague directional references that locals will employ to confuse the hell out of you.

Adentro, to a Costa Rican living in a rural area, is a directional reference meaning "further into the country (boondocks)".

Afuera, as you may expect, means "toward the city". ("Cities" in Costa Rica are often of quite modest size.)

When city folk comes to the Costa Rican countryside, they often get confused by these references. I was witness to a conversation a Costa Rican had with a city-dwelling American when this issue caused major confusion. The rural Costa Rican asked the American (U.S.) "do you like living afuera"? The American then went on to explaining that, no, he prefers the city. The Costa Rican stopped listening at some point (as he normally does) and ended the conversation thinking that the guy actually preferred living in a rural setting. When I brought this up later on, he became defensive, assuring me that the guy didn't like living "afuera".

If you've ever tried confrontation with a Costa Rican, you'll know that it's a futile endeavor. The culture has a high level of avoidance and a distaste for 'necios' who challenge other people. As a result, I didn't try convincing this guy of the cultural divide that the conversation exemplified.

_______________

Other confusing directional references include arriba and abajo. the rural Costa Rican has a surprisingly detailed picture of his area's topography in his head. He'll tell you, "voy pa' bajo", which means nothing to a city slicker. What he'll probably tell you, though, if you care to ask the right questions, is that the town that neighbors him to the south is at about 20 vertical meters below his own. I always wonder: "Couldn't he just tell me the name of the town"?!!? This wondering often gets you nowhere.

Also, Costa Ricans offer gestures to replace descriptive directional cues. Costa Ricans will point at things, whether near or far, with their lips. They press them together and stick them out, as if to make a duckbill, and nod their head in a slight upward motion in the indicated direction.

***Please note that this lip pointing is also a popular way for a Costa Rican man to point out an attractive woman to another dude***

Voy pa' Chepe

2008-04-09T19:11:00.000-07:00

Mexico is well known for the nicknames it has for specific given names. Francisco can be either "Paco" or "Pancho". Ignacio you can call "Nacho" (even to his face). José can be "Pepe", but in Costa Rica, he's "Chepe". (Sometimes even Josué will become Chepe.)

As you may already know, Costa Rica's capital is San José. Even the capital de la patria cannot avoid this playful tico nomenclature. Costa Ricans outside of San José will often refer to San José as "Chepe", especially when they're making a trip to the city. (It seems that the farther you get from San José, the more often it's called "Chepe".)

"Voy pa' Chepe" is all I ever needed to say when I was leaving town.

In the Campo

2008-04-09T18:54:00.000-07:00

The word 'campo' most people learn as a word meaning 'countryside'. This meaning is still valid in Costa Rica, but perhaps a more common usage, even in "el campo" itself, employs the word as a synonym for 'space'.

For example, if someone is trying to squeeze through a small space around another person, she'll say "deme campo por favor".

The first time I heard someone asking me for some 'campo', I didn't know what to make of it. (I was either too slow to pick up on contextual clues, or I was just too caught up in the new language to function as a normal human being.) I ended up getting out of the way, but it was about a minute later when I fully understood that the person was not only asking for a little space, but that campo actually means 'space'. A real epiphany, I know.

¡Dame campo o dame la muerte! Sounds like a country song.

Pura Vida,

Thomas

¡Diay!

2008-04-05T09:30:00.000-07:00

***Please note the informative commentary below on what--unexpectedly--turned out to be a fairly controversial blog post***

This word, 'diay', is used quite frequently in Costa Rican Spanish in a number of different situations. Most notably, 'diay' is used for what in English would be something like "wtf?" (I prefer not to spell that out for you.)

For example, if I ask someone if he went to his AA meeting last night, to which he responded "no", I would say "diay"? (Just in case you didn't know, punctuation goes outside of quotation marks in written Spanish.) In one simple word I can express the following sentence: "I can't believe you didn't go to your AA meeting, you really should've gone, and you should be ashamed of yourself."

What other word can say so much?

You can also use 'diay' as filler before starting something you're gonna say. In this case it is used like the English 'well' as in "Well...I didn't go to my AA meeting because I had a doctor's appointment."

***Clarification on this post, ¡Diay!***

I must clarify a few issues brought up by the comments found below. I see why people might take issue with my lackluster effort at determining a translation for 'diay'.

First of all, 'wtf' is not the best translation. 'Diay' is perhaps best translated as 'what happened', 'why not', or a number of similar phrases that can express surprise and wonderment. My problem with using these phrases was that they are too numerous. It's my fault for succumbing to my laziness and trying to come up with a catch-all phrase, which wasn't appropriate for the situation. I thought 'wtf' would be a good example of a translation because it not only asks what happened (or what didn't happen) effectively but also expresses the surprise of an expected--or an unacceptable--outcome. (There are a number of occasions when you would ask "What happened?", but you'd most commonly say 'Diay?' when the outcome was unexpected or unacceptable.)

Also, people might rightly take issue with the vulgarity of 'wtf', which might imply that 'diay' is somehow a vulgar word, which it is not. I simply meant to convey to English speakers, in a concise way, what might be a possible replacement for 'wtf'. I think 'diay' does indeed work for the majority of these cases. This semantic problem arises when you try to make this translation reciprocal. I would never imply that Costa Ricans are really trying to say something as vulgar as 'wtf' when saying 'diay'. More importantly, I would never recommend that a Costa Rican start saying 'wtf' in English instead of 'diay', especially because it often won't even make sense.

If there's something to be learned here (this is certainly something I have learned) it's that translations can be very tricky. In this case I will concede that my original use of 'wtf' alone as a translation for 'diay' was innacurrate in that it was extremely inadequate.

The Double Plural

2008-04-03T19:53:00.000-07:00

In rural areas of Costa Rica you'll sometimes hear double plurals. The most common one would be for parents, popularly referred to as 'papases.' To make 'papá' plural to mean parents you really only need to add a single 's' at the end. Many Ticos, however, think of the plural 'papás' as the word for a single set of parents. When they're talking about a group of parents, though, they'll say 'papases'.

It may seem weird, but there's actually some decent reason behind it. Plus, it sounds kind of cool. I dig it.

If you want to read more extensive articles on rural Costa Rican Spanish, go to the Costa Rican Spanish articles on my website. If you're into the linguistic aspects of Costa Rican language, I recommend the two with the title "Not the King's Spanish". There are also some lighter reads as well.

Rapu Davi ;)

Christmas Bonus

2008-04-03T09:37:00.000-07:00

Continuing the work theme, an important work vocab word for Costa Rica is the aguinaldo. Hold on to your hats, folks. In Costa Rica the state actually enforces an obligatory wage in the month of December for all employees, whether employed by the state or not, equivalent to a full month's salary (the average monthly salary for the year) on top of that month's salary. This aguinaldo has become a huge part of Costa Rican culture, as Ticos await this bookoo cash for holiday purchases.

Personally, I think the concept is a bit strange, especially since it's mandatory, but I must admit that it has its virtues. For example, it's nice to receive something at the end of the year. It's like Christmas, but for adults. Also, it does leave something to spend at the end of the year, whereas many people would otherwise spend their extra wages if they were evenly dispersed in their yearly paychecks.

One perceived virtue of the aguinaldo that, in my mind, is not a virtue at all is the idea of "free money" or "extra money." Costa Ricans often tell me, "it's so bad that there's no aguinaldo in the United States--the extra money at the end of the year helps us out." Now, as I stated before, the aguinaldo does help people save for the end of the year, but not everyone is best off with this "big brother" approach. If you ask me, I'd rather have that money dispersed in all of my paychecks, which is what my employer would use to calculate average monthly costs anyway! That's right, it's not free money. Employers know how much they'll need to spend on aguinaldos, so they'll pay you less than they otherwise would on a monthly basis to make up for it. Even more, they'll pocket that money they would have otherwise paid you each month until the very end of the year. So, they have your money for a whole year, leaving you to pay the opportunity cost of that cash, effectively decreasing--not increasing--your average monthly pay in real terms.

Ticos like their aguinaldo and I'm glad for it. I, however, would like my money now.

Work in Costa Rica

2008-04-02T20:06:00.000-07:00

No, this isn't a how-to on getting a work visa. I'm going to introduce a few Costa Rican words that relate to work. Consider the following:

Brete, also used as a verb bretear, means job. This is a slang word, something you wouldn't find in the paper or on the news. However, Ticos will use this word in informal situations.

Oficio is another word for work, but it refers to household chores. In Costa Rica this is traditionally a woman's work. (I don't make the rules, I swear.) In rural areas you'll often hear women say "I need to get back home to hacer el oficio." (Please excuse the Spanglish.) This usually involves mopping the tile floors and, in rural areas, sweeping ceilings for cobwebs, termites, or wasp nests.

Terms for remuneration include chamba, which is a considerable amount of earnings, as well as una millonada, which would be a huge amount of money in the millions of colones, which essentially means thousands of US dollars. (Millonada is used most frequently in reference to lottery earnings.) These aren't particularly Tico words, but I hear them used often nonetheless.

Perhaps the most important work vocabulary has to do with what some would consider passive income. (Hey, it's no knock the Ticos--who doesn't like free money?) Pensión can refer to a pension earned after retirement ('retired' in Costa Rican Spanish is 'pensionado' whether or not the retiree has a pension to speak of), which for many government employees equals full pay for life. Pensión also refers to the child support that a Tico pays for each child not in his custody. Fortunately, the Costa Rican government does a good job of enforcing child support laws. Unfortunately, however, many Costa Rican men make a habit of having children with multiple women. (Again, don't blame the messenger--I don't make the rules!) I really don't know how they do it....well at least the part about them actually paying all that child support. Kids are expensive--even in Costa Rica.

Alright, good talk.

;)

Where 1 means I

2008-04-01T21:31:00.000-07:00

In Costa Rica, when a person uses 'uno' as a subject pronoun, she will almost always be speaking in the first person. 'Uno', in such a case, would essentially mean 'yo'. This is a very important cultural aspect of Costa Rican language that shows the Ticos' indirect nature.

To demonstrate exactly what I'm referring to, here's a quick example to get you caught up:

Uno no podría montar a caballo por tanto tiempo
[translation] I wouldn't be able to ride a horse for so much time

Perhaps this way of speaking first originated from Costa Ricans' tendency to speak indirectly and always take the explicit personal nature out of what they say. However, this language has become so pervasive over time that 'uno' simply means 'I' (or 'me'). Even more, the use of 'uno' to mean a more general 'one', as used in English, simply does not exist in Costa Rica. I know this because I've tried using 'one' in the more general third person sense and have confused the hell out of people as a result. I was doing a presentation for a rural community group and said something along the lines of "one not being able to do something." Well, that something was apparently a personal core competency. Admitting that "one" couldn't do it compelled everyone in the room to give me odd looks. I wasn't trying to refer to myself, but everyone in the room thought I was. I clarified the situation very quickly and moved on, but many foreigners never pick up on this subtlety because it goes much deeper than conventional, direct translations between English and Spanish. So, "one" can certainly sympathize ;)

Tamaño Poco

2008-03-16T07:05:00.000-07:00

The Spanish word 'tamaño' is a noun meaning 'size', but in Costa Rica it can be used as an adjective as part of an idiomatic expression. The phrase 'tamaño poco', which shouldn't make sense by any stretch of standard Spanish, in Costa Rica means 'a lot of' or 'a substantial amount of'. For example:

Antes era un pobre, pero ahora tiene tamaño poco ganado.
[Translation] Before he was a poor man, but now he has a considerable amount of cattle.

You will hear stuff like this all the time in the Costa Rican countryside. Now, read the following example that highlights an important characteristic of this Costa Rican idiom:

Antes era un pobre, pero ahora tiene tamaño poco plata.

[Translation] Before he was a poor man, but now he has a considerable amount of money.

After seeing this example, and thinking of 'tamaño poco' as 'a lot' or the Spanish 'mucho/a', you might expect the former to take on the gender of the noun it's describing like most Spanish adjectives. 'Tamaño poco', however, effectively functions as a noun phrase that leads into a prepositional phrase. That's why I prefer to say that 'tamaño poco' means 'a considerable amount of' or 'a substantial amount of' instead of simply say it means 'a lot'.

Costa Rican National Anthem - Himno Nacional de Costa Rica

2008-03-14T21:08:00.000-07:00

The Costa Rican National Anthem was adopted in 1853 and composed by Manuel María Gutiérrez. The lyrics to the anthem have been in use since 1949. Every morning in a typical Costa Rican public primary school, the National Anthem is preceded by everyone reciting Hail Mary, Our Father, and a prayer prepared by and individual student. (Roman Catholicism is the official state religion in Costa Rica.)

Posted below are the Spanish lyrics to the Himno followed by their approximate English translation.

Noble patria tu hermosa bandera
expresión de tu vida nos da
bajo el límpido azul de tu cielo
blanca y pura descansa la paz

En la lucha tenaz, de fecunda labor
que enrojece del hombre la faz
conquistaron tus hijos labriegos, sencillos
eterno prestigio, estima y honor
eterno presitigio, estima y honor

Salve oh tierra gentil
Salve oh madre de amor
Cuando alguien pretenda tu gloria manchar
verás a tu pueblo valiente y viril
la tosca herramienta en arma trocar

Noble patria tu pródigo suelo
dulce abrigo y sustento nos da
bajo el límpido azul de tu cielo
vivan siempre el trabajo y la paz

[English]

Noble homeland your beautiful flag
expression of your life it gives us.
Beneath the limpid blue of your sky
white and pure rests peace.

In the tenacious fight of fruitful labor
that reddens the man's face
your simple laborer sons conquered
eternal prestige, esteem and honor
eternal prestige, esteem and honor

Hail oh gentile country
Hail oh mother of love
If someone intends to stain your glory
you will see your people, brave and virile
the rough tool turns into weapon.

Hail oh homeland your fertile soil
sweet shelter and sustenance it gives us.
Beneath the limpid blue of your sky
may work and peace live forever!

Rapu Davi

2008-02-29T05:10:00.000-08:00

El estilo pachuco, the way Costa Ricans describe a very "ordinario" way of speaking, has a different way to say just about anything. If you ever meet a hopeless pachuco, someone who makes a point of using the slang version of EVERYTHING, he might even give you a different variation of Costa Rica's signature 'pura vida'. "Rapu davi, jema," he might say to you. Please note that this utterance is simply the juxtaposition of syllables in the words 'pura vida, maje'. (Note that 'maje' is now popularly pronounced and spelled 'mae' and is often used in the same way and with the same frequency as 'dude' in English.)

Rapu davi, goami. :::wink:::

By the way, I just Googled 'rapu davi' and one of the top web results was a page about Chile's Easter Island, or 'Rapa Nui' in the local tongue. (That is, Easter Island's natives' language, not Spanish.) I don't really care to research that one much more, but every time I had previously thought of 'rapu davi', Easter Island had come to mind. Maybe I'm not the only one...

Holy Smokes!!!

2008-02-29T05:03:00.000-08:00

In Costa Rica, you might hear an old woman exclaim "diantres!" I used to always wonder why one of my neighbors would always say that when she was shocked by something. Good ol' Mailí, an Evangelical Christian, eventually explained to me that it is an acceptable way to avoid saying 'diablos', which means 'devils'. It seems that it's not only English that has those loopholes for saying quite nearly what you mean, but without the negative stigma of actually doing it.

Interesante, ¿es o no es?

Pura Vida,

;)

You'll Enjoy this Post (God Willing)

2008-02-26T13:29:00.000-08:00

The use of 'God' in Costa Rican Spanish can be quite perplexing to the lay observer. Costa Ricans, whether particularly religious or not, will invoke 'Dios' for all sorts of circumstances. Below are a few of the most common expressions that use the lord's name:

Gracias a Dios - Meaning 'thanks to God', this expression follows the telling of good news. "My son got into the University of his choice, gracias a Dios", a Costa Rican might say. "I'm doing great today, gracias a Dios". You get the point.

Si Dios quiere - Costa Ricans can hardly ever make any sort of future projection without putting 'God willing' before or after it. Even things that seem largely within the control of the speaker are accompanied by 'si Dios quiere'. This expression often causes confusion between Costa Ricans and foreigners. Gringos often wonder, "will this person actually attend the 4 o'clock meeting, or will he just pray for it to be so?" Very often, ONLY GOD KNOWS!!! ***For an entertaining little parody that exemplifies this cultural phenomenon, although in an exaggerated manner, visit http://www.ruralcostarica.com/si-dios-quiere.asp.

There are several more references to God that I'll touch on in the next post.

Dios me los bendiga ;)

Futbol vs. Fútbol

2008-02-26T13:21:00.001-08:00

Soccer in Costa Rica is pronounced futbol, with the accent over the last syllable. This is different from the standard Spanish fútbol that people say in other parts of the Spanish-speaking world. Interestingly enough, though, Costa Ricans will still spell soccer with the standard 'fútbol' orthography.

Ir v. Irse

2008-02-26T13:15:00.000-08:00

In Costa Rica use irse only when someone is going away for good. Anything that is only temporary only warrants the verb ir. So, if you're going to the United States to visit your family, say "Voy a los Estados Unidos". Don't say "Me voy para los Estados Unidos", unless you really are moving back to the United States. I used this last sentence once, which prompted a number of mushy text messages to my cell phone. After realizing what had happened, I had to notify people that I would be back within a few weeks.

Pura Vida,

;)

¿Quién es más macho?

2008-01-02T09:41:00.000-08:00

In Costa Rica macho doesn't mean macho. Well, it does, but it most often means blonde. Just like any other Spanish adjective, it has a masculine and feminine form, so a macha would be a blonde female. The word rubio/a is understood in Costa Rica, but the preferred term is macho/a. (You will most often hear rubia when referring to the local beer Pilsen, which is a blonde)

So, if you, as a light-haired foreigner, hear someone call you macho, don't get all weird about it. She's likely not coming onto you, but simply identifying you with respect to your hair color. (Foreigners in any Latin country should get used to commentary on physical attributes, as Latinos have no shame in telling you that you're very fat, skinny, pale, or dark-skinned) Also, don't be alarmed if someone calls you gringo, as Americans are very well-liked in Costa Rica and the word gringo does not carry the same negative connotation like in other places and time periods in Latin America.

Pura Vida...

Tico Matrimony

2008-01-02T09:34:00.000-08:00

Ticos, although very Catholic in a number of ways, stray from traditional Catholic values in their marriages...in that they often don't exist. Many Ticos will refer to their live-in boyfriends and girlfriends as mi marido or mi mujer, respectively. This kind of pre-marital co-habitation happens all the time in Costa Rica. Instead of casados the two parties are considered juntados. They use the verb juntarse to describe formation of these uniones libres, as they call them. I found it very surprising that these arrangements are not only common, but are also widely accepted in the mainstream culture. It makes you wonder what it really means to be Catholic. Obviously it differs from one culture to another. More deep thoughts to follow...