Guide to Costa Rican Spanish

5 Responses to “Guide to Costa Rican Spanish”

1. Donna L. Slaughter says:

   October 9, 2010 at 9:38 am

   Book will be a fantastic help to my spouse on his trip to Coasta Rica!
   Reader’s Rating: 5 / 5
2. J. Mitchell says:

   October 9, 2010 at 11:12 am

   we just got back from costa rica. we dont speak much spanish at all, but, we didn’t use this book much at all either. i reflect we would’ve done better with a straightforward spanish/english glossary. we need words for things like ‘path’ and ‘hike’ and couldnt find them- this book seems more geared towards persons heading to resorts, hotels and bars. We selected up more of the language and got around better by using what was remembered from high school spanish and learning new words from the locals as we went along.
   Reader’s Rating: 3 / 5
3. C. Greenstreet says:

   October 9, 2010 at 12:27 pm

   I just returned from a 2-plus week trip to Costa Rica in which I took a Spanish-language interest class. I had 3 college-level classes of Spanish before I went. I took the book (and left it there) as I did not find it at all useful. Here are my opinions:
   
   1. A very critical pronunciation point was not even covered in this guide. The Costa Ricans pronounce the double ll (calle, apellido) in the same way as the Argentines, as a “dj” sound. So “calle”, which in Mexico would be pronounced “ca-ye” becomes closer to “ca-dje” or ca-dge”. (Obviously I am not a linguist). This is a major difference to how most of us learned Castillian or Mexican Spanish, and really should have been in the book.
   
   2. The book has some practice pages on telling time, but did not mention that in Costa Rica, they don’t use the traditional “Son dos menos diez” (it is 10 min of two) but as a replacement for us “falta”: “Faltan diez minutos para las dos”. Since time is critically vital to a traveler, you do need to know that. In addition, the practice pages, which are clocks with hands, don’t have the answers – so really useless.
   
   3. The book has some pronunciation practice, but lacking any pronunciation guide, building it reasonably worthless
   
   4. OK, maybe I am a prude. But I ongoing reading the book from the front, and was very offended by an early section entitled “Social Sitiuations”. I suggest that the next edition, if there is one, should have this section follow “Officially authorized Terminology”. Persons who consider these items to be “social situations” will need a lawyer.
   
   5. My two professors at the language school told me that most Costa Ricans don’t use “vos”. According to them, it is used in Guanacaste (NW province) and in Nicaragua, but not in very many additional regions. So you really don’t need it.
   
   6. The glossary was touchingly fleeting
   
   7. The editor/leader seemed to want to stretch the book to 200 pages, and there were advertisements, blank pages, etc in the book to fill it out. A more robust glossary would be more useful.
   
   8. It was chopped into different sections which would make it very hard to find something if you really needed it. Take a real glossary, such as the portable Merriam-Webster. It fits right in a pocket and would be of more use than this phrasebook.
   
   Reader’s Rating: 1 / 5
4. Jan Lockhart says:

   October 9, 2010 at 1:04 pm

   This book may not be best for a first book on language Latin American Spanish, but, it has been extremely helpful in helping me with pronunciation and local usage of words.
   Reader’s Rating: 4 / 5
5. Richard Soto says:

   October 9, 2010 at 1:51 pm

   When I came to Costa Rica I quickly learned the vast majority of Costa Ricans DIDN’T speak English. Since I only had a limited Spanish vocabulary, I had a lot of problems in daily situations. Then I bought this handy small book and it virtually helped me survive the first couple of years. I still refer to it now and then for vital phrases.
   Reader’s Rating: 5 / 5