My Spanish Notes

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¿Vas a poner la maría? Posted: 14 Apr 2014 08:30 AM PDT If you missed my first two posts about my Costa Rica adventures, you can read them here: 1.  Tienes que cancelar la entrada 2.  ¡Pura Vida! Let's see if I can wrap things up in this post.  So far I covered the language and now it's time to talk about my second favorite thing, comida. When I travel the first thing I usually want to do when I get off the plane is find someone to talk to in a local bar and have a beer.  So let's start with what's probably the most popular beer in Costa Rica: I'm not huge on beer, it's more of something I do on vacation.  But I have to admit, it wasn't bad. Although I preferred the Imperial Silver: You can probably tell those are photos I got off the internet.  As many of those things as I drank you'd think I would have taken my own photos.  Oh well. Costa Rica is famous for it's casados.  A casado is what I'm going to call a combination plate for lack of a better word.  You get some type of meat and a couple of sides.  Here's one I tried: As you can see I ordered pescado (fish).  And to be specific, it was Corvina (Sea bass).  The other items on the plate arearroz, frijoles, plátano maduro, ensalada and a limón madarin.  I have to to admit, it was ¡muy rico! By the way, muy rico literally translates to "very rich" but when it comes to food that's a very common way to say it's "really good". ¿Cómo está la comida? Está muy rica How's the food? It's really good Even the fast food chains serve casados. Costa Rica is also very famous for it's Gallo Pinto.  Gallo Pinto is a traditional Costa Rican breakfast food.  Here's a photo of what a breakfast of Gallo Pinto might look like. I'm ashamed to say I never tried the Gallo Pinto.  Oh well, that's my excuse for another trip to Costa Rica.  I did however, try a lomito. Lomito isn't exclusively Costa Rican, nor is it anything particularly Spanish.  It's the word the waitress told me they use for steak in Costa Rica. There are a lot of good places to eat in Costa Rica, you can find lots of little restaurants walking up and down the street.  And these little restaurants are called Sodas.  All this talk of food is making me hungry.  It's time to change subjects. The last thing I'm going to talk about is taxi's.  The streets of San Jose are flooded with these little red cabs. The meter is called a taxímetro. Por favor, ponga el taxímetro Please turn on the meter You may need that phrase may often than you think.  It will keep the taxi driver honest.  And speaking of honest cab drivers, there are people that moonlight as cab drivers that don't have a taxímetro.  These so-called cabs are calledpiratas and aside from the fact they aren't necessarily safe, you're going to end up paying more. The taxímetro is also called La María. ¿Vas a poner la maría? Are you going to turn on the meter? And that's it, we're done!  At least for today.  There's one more thing I want to share with you but it will have to wait for my next post. Oh, before I go, you may remember I mentioned plátanos maduros earlier.  If you don't what those are, then read my below posts.  And if even you do know what they are, you still probably want to read these posts because you might just be surprised at what you learn. 1. ¿Tostones o amarillos? 2. Banano-Banana-Guineo-Plátano ¡Hasta la próxima!

¡Pura Vida! Posted: 14 Apr 2014 08:30 AM PDT It's time to pick up where I left off with my adventures in Costa Rican Spanish.  I probably should have started with this one, but it's never too late so let's get to it. Pura vida is practically the national slogan of Costa Rica.  Pura vida is more than just words, it's a way of life. It's all about taking things easy and just enjoying life.  Kinda like "Don't worry, be happy".  Here are the basics of how it's used. Hola mae, ¿cómo va?  ¿Pura vida? Pura vida mae Hi dude, how are you?  It's all good? It's all good dude By the way, mae is pronounced "my".  And tuanis (two-juan-knees) is considered a synonym of pura vida. ¿Cómo está mae? Tuanis How are you dude? Great If your Spanish is good or you're up for a challenge, here's a good (and relatively short) read about tuanis.  But if you want some insight from the experts then click here to learn more cool Costa Rican slang. Let's move on to the next topic. If you happen to be driving in Costa Rica, there is no shortage of parking, which I know as estacionamento, but in Costa Rica it's known as parqueo. Here's an interesting street sign: At first I thought "Is this a typo?".    I had never seen the word virar before, but it's meaning (thanks to the sign) was pretty obvious: No virar a la izquierda No left turn This jumped out at me because I'm used to seeing signs that say "No girar a la izquierda".  But it's always nice to have options right? While walking through downtown San Jose I saw a shoe store named Cachos. Cachos is not only the name of the store, but it's also slang for shoes.  When I confirmed it's meaning with my tico friend he also told me they use caballo for jeans and chema for shirt. Like any other city San Jose has it's share of corner stores and in Costa Rica these corner stores are called pulperías. I was fortunate enough to get a candid shot of Costa Rica's new presidente.  He just happened to be campaigning downtown.  If you're curious about the details of the election, here's an article, in Spanish of course. The last thing I'm going to talk about in this post is Costa Rican plata.  Plata is slang for dinero.  If you want to learn some more slang words for dinero, you can read my post Más minutos menos lana. Costa rican money is called colones.  Here are some pictures: I love the currency of Costa Rica, it's very colorful.  Way more fun than our boring American dollars. That's it for today.  I think one more post will wrap up my Costa Rican adventures, so stay tuned.  If you missed the other posts, you can find them here: 1.  Tiene que cancelar la entrada 2.  ¿Vas a poner la maría? ¡hasta la próxima!