Costa Rica overview

Spanish is the national language of Costa Rica. However, just like every Spanish speaking country, the Costa Ricans have their own dialect and twist to the language. Ticos are amused and delighted when foreigners try to speak Spanish, especially when they include tiquismos, expressions that are particular to Costa Rican or Central American culture.

Not only the vocabulary, but the way you use words is important. Spanish speakers use a lot of muletillas (fillers, literally means “crutches”) in their speech. They directly address the person with whom they are speaking more often than is done in English, and they do it in a way that English speakers might consider slightly offensive. It is common for women to be called mamita, madre, or mi hijita (little mother, mother, my little daughter-all roughly corresponding to “honey”). Latins love to use salient physical characteristics as nicknames. Common ones are gordo (fatty), flaco (skinny), macho (Costa Rican for fair-skinned or fair-haired), negro (dark-skinned), chino (it doesn’t matter if you’re Asian or just have slightly slanting eyes, your name is Chino), gato (blue or green eyes). You need to be only slightly gordo or flaco to merit those names. If you’re really gordo or flaco, and people really like you, you get a special name like repollito (little cabbage) or palito (little stick).

Younger Ticos and Ticas are usually called maje (pronounced “my”) by their friends. This literally means “dummy,” but figuratively is more like pal or buddy. It is used widely as muletilla. Majes have various expressions of approval-such as the famous pura vida (great, terrific), tuanis (cool), and buena nota (groovy). Mala nota is ungroovy, furris is uncool, and salado means “too bad for you.” Expressions of extreme approval are que bruto, que barbaro, and disapproval, que horror, or fatal, maje.