The Ultimate Guide To Costa Rican Spanish

If you're learning Spanish, you've probably noticed by now that there are a ton of different varieties, and Costa Rican Spanish is yet another one.

Well known for its beaches, its volcanoes and its biodiversity, Costa Rica entices travellers and adventure seekers. And, as if all that were not enough, it’s also a fascinating country to learn a super interesting variety of Spanish.

For example, did you know that Costa Ricans pronounce the R like English speakers do? Or that they don’t use the pronoun tú to say “you” but use vos instead?

Well, this is just the tip of the iceberg: in this ultimate guide, you'll discover everything you need to know about Costa Rican Spanish. 

Costa Rican Spanish – Region By Region 

Talking about “Costa Rican Spanish” is not entirely correct because the Costa Rican dialect isn't the same throughout the country. After all, this happens in every country: each region has its own language characteristics. 

Costa Rican Spanish can be divided into 4 dialect zones:

The Valle Central

The Valle Central area (“Central Valley”) is the region that concentrates the largest and most important cities in Costa Rica, including San José, its capital, which has about 400 thousand people (but 4 million if we take into account its thriving metropolitan area!).

The Valle Central zone accent is characterised by being soft; it is the one that is normally used in mass media.

North Pacific Area

In the province of Guanacaste, the Costa Rican Spanish accent is quite different from that of the Valle Central. This region borders Nicaragua, and, in fact, many lexical features are similar to those you can hear in Nicaraguan Spanish.

For example the aspiration of postvocalic S, and a less common rhotic R (what is rhotic R? Don’t worry, we’ll get there in a bit).

The Caribbean

The area of Costa Rica located on the Caribbean coast includes the province of Limón, which is the site of constant migratory waves from the Antilles, a region with countries such as Antigua and Barbuda, Jamaica, Haiti or Barbados.

This means that the Costa Rica Spanish dialect spoken here has a clearly Caribbean intonation and has influences from other languages spoken in the Caribbean, such as English, Patois, and French.

Characteristics Of Costa Rican Spanish

Beyond the fact that each region has particular features, you can hear a series of characteristics that are present in all the Costa Rican dialects.

Let’s find out what they are!

Voseo

No doubt: voseo is one of the most notable characteristics of Costa Rican Spanish. But what is voseo?

Well, it’s quite simple: it’s about replacing the second person pronoun tú by vos (in English, “you”).

Although the voseo is a phenomenon that happens a lot in Latin America, Costa Rica is the only country, with Argentina, where voseo is the general norm throughout the territory, both oral and written.

Now, I just told you that voseo is only about changing tú to vos… Okay, it’s a bit more than that! You need to add one more rule: changing the conjugation of Spanish verbs, fundamentally those that are in their present form.

Beyond the fact that the voseo is generalized, ustedeo (that is, the use of usted as a second person pronoun) is also frequent as a form of address, both colloquially and formally.

Let’s see some examples:

Verbal Modes 

Another characteristic of Costa Rican Spanish is the use of simple past tenses instead of compound past tenses. It’s also common to use the periphrastic future (the one with ir) instead of the simple future.

These features are common to most of the Spanish-speaking countries of Latin America, while in the Spanish of Spain it’s preferred to use the compound past and the simple future.

Let’s look at this in more detail.

The Costa Rican R

You're learning Spanish, so you know how many pronunciation problems the letter R can cause, because rolling your Rs is not easy at all.

But Costa Ricans pronounce the R just like native English speakers do: in a less vibrant way. This phoneme is popularly known as the R tica  (the Costa Rican R; since tico or tica is a nickname for Costa Ricans).

Note: the Costa Rican R, although quite widespread throughout the country, is much more common in the Valle Central area. In Guanacaste, the R tends to vibrate, as is usually done in other Latin American dialects.

Other Phonetic Features

• Yeísmo. Costa Rican Spanish — like most varieties of Spanish in Latin America — tends to pronounce the phonemes “y” and “ll” in the same way: as an “i”.
• Seseo. In Costa Rica, the “z” and the “c” (the latter, when accompanied by an “e” or an “i”) are pronounced like an “s”. Once again, this is a trait shared by all dialects of American Spanish.
• Weaker unstressed vowels. Unstressed vowels are those that, in pronunciation, don't have an accent. In Costa Rican Spanish, it’s common for these vowels to sound weaker, especially when the immediately following phoneme is an “s”. So, it’s common to hear words like cochs instead of coches (cars), or ciudads instead of ciudades (cities).
• Use of the suffix -ico for diminutives. As in Venezuelan Spanish and other Caribbean dialects, Costa Ricans use the suffix -ico instead of -ito or -illo: for example, un ratico (a little while).

6 Must-Know Costa Rican Spanish Slang Words

Finally, here are six typical Costa Rican Spanish words and phrases that, no doubt, you will hear on your next trip to this beautiful country.

1. Tico/a

This is an easy one: tico and tica are affectionate ways of referring to Costa Ricans. So you can hear about the cultura tica (Costa Rican culture) or the gastronomía tica (Costa Rican gastronomy).

2. Mae

This is a term that varies a lot depending on the context, although, in general, it’s used to refer to friends — something like the boludo/a in Argerntinian Spanish or the tío/a in Spanish of Spain. 

3. Brete

It’s a coloquial way of saying trabajo (work). Just like the Argentinian laburo, the Spanish curro or pega in the Chilean Spanish.

4. Fachudo

Someone fachudo/a is someone unkempt. This word comes from Italy, and is one of the influences of the immigration from that country (5% of the Costa Ricans descend from Italy!).

5.Vara

It’s one of those words that you can use in a lot of contexts. A vara is a thing, no matter what — a bit like vaina in Venezuelan Spanish.

6. Pura Vida

This phrase, which means “pure life”, is used as an answer to a greeting. For Costa Ricans, pura vida symbolises the simplicity of good living.

It conveys a chill and relaxing feeling, as if there was nothing to worry about. Well, that makes sense when you live in a tropical paradise!

Costa Rican Spanish FAQs

Spanish Is A Fascinating Language

With the predominant voseo, the R tica  and a lot of typical words like mae or vara, Costa Rican Spanish is a super interesting variety of this language. No doubt, Spanish is fascinating!

There are thousands of ways to speak it, and even within each region, you can find various dialects. This can only guarantee one thing: that the process of learning Spanish is a challenging and exciting adventure.

And since learning a language means enjoying the process, why don't you improve your Spanish by listening to incredible stories with the StoryLearning® system. Pura vida!

Olly Richards

Creator of the StoryLearning® Method

Olly Richards is a renowned polyglot and language learning expert with over 15 years of experience teaching millions through his innovative StoryLearning® method. He is the creator of StoryLearning, one of the world's largest language learning blogs with 500,000+ monthly readers.

Olly has authored 30+ language learning books and courses, including the bestselling "Short Stories" series published by Teach Yourself.

When not developing new teaching methods, Richards practices what he preaches—he speaks 8 languages fluently and continues learning new ones through his own methodology.