How to Survive Your First Week
in Costa Rica
Speaking Spanish
The first week in a new country speaking a new language is the most disorienting — and the most formative. Every interaction is an opportunity. Every confusion is a lesson. This guide walks you through it day by day, with the exact phrases you need for each situation.
I have watched hundreds of students arrive in Costa Rica for the first time. Some come with years of Spanish study behind them. Some come with almost none. What I have noticed over and over again is that the level of Spanish they studied matters far less than the attitude they bring.
The people who thrive in that first week are not necessarily the ones who speak the best Spanish. They are the ones who are willing to try, willing to fail, and willing to laugh at themselves when they say something completely wrong. Costa Rica is one of the most forgiving countries in the world for language learners — Ticos are patient, warm, and genuinely delighted when a foreigner makes the effort.
This guide gives you a day-by-day framework for that first week — what situations you will face, what to say, and how to handle the inevitable moments when you have absolutely no idea what is happening.
Before Day One —
5 Rules That Change Everything
Before we get to the day-by-day, here are five mindset rules that the most successful first-week visitors all follow. None of them are about grammar.
Even if you think the person speaks English. Even if you are going to say it badly. The attempt is the signal — it tells a Costa Rican you respect their language. Most will then happily switch to English if needed, but the relationship is different because you tried.
“Could you speak more slowly?” — say this early and say it often. Costa Ricans speak at full speed with full slang to foreigners by default because it does not occur to them to adjust. Asking for slow speech is not weakness. It is intelligence.
Walk into a shop: ¡Buenas! Get in a taxi: ¡Buenas! Enter a restaurant: ¡Buenas! This single word — used all day regardless of time — opens every interaction in Costa Rica correctly. It signals warmth, manners, and cultural awareness in one syllable.
Every error you make is remembered. Not with embarrassment — but with progress. The student who says embarazada when they mean embarrassed will never confuse the two words again. Mistakes are not the enemy of learning. Silence is.
When in doubt — when you cannot think of the right phrase, when the conversation has moved past what you can follow, when you simply want to close an interaction warmly — pura vida is almost always appropriate. Use it freely. It will carry you through more situations than any other phrase in this guide.
Day by Day —
What to Expect and What to Say
You land at Juan Santamaría International Airport in Alajuela. Everything is in Spanish. The signs are mostly clear. Then a taxi driver says something to you at full speed and you realize you understood approximately one word.
Breathe. Here is what you need for day one.
Day one goal: complete every necessary interaction in Spanish, even badly. Do not switch to English unless the other person initiates it. You are setting the tone for the entire week.
Find a local soda — not a hotel restaurant, not a tourist café. A soda is a small family-run restaurant where real Ticos eat. The menu is often written on a chalkboard or recited verbally. The food is cheap, fresh, and genuinely Costa Rican. This is where day two begins.
By the end of day two, you should have completed at least three full transactions in Spanish without switching languages. That is the goal — not perfection, volume.
Costa Rica’s public bus system is cheap, extensive, and almost entirely in Spanish. Take a bus. Get slightly lost. Ask for help. This is the most effective Spanish lesson available anywhere in the country, and it costs about 700 colones.
Costa Rican directions are famously non-standard. Ticos navigate by landmarks, not street names: “cien metros al norte del árbol de mango” (100 metres north of the mango tree). Distances are given in metros (metres) and cuadras (blocks). Compass directions — norte, sur, este, oeste — are used constantly. Learn these four words before day three.
By day four, the mechanical survival phrases should be starting to feel less effortful. It is time to push further — into actual social conversation. Ticos are among the most naturally sociable people in Latin America. A simple question, answered warmly, often becomes a twenty-minute conversation. Let it happen.
Telling a Tico that you are learning Spanish and asking them to correct you is one of the most powerful things you can do. It invites genuine engagement, it flatters them, and it guarantees you will learn something real in the next five minutes. Most Ticos will become informal language teachers immediately and enthusiastically.
Something will go wrong in the first week. A reservation confusion. A wrong order. A missed bus. A lost item. This is not bad luck — it is the most valuable language lesson the week will offer. High-stakes situations force real fluency faster than any comfortable interaction.
Costa Rica exists for its nature — volcanoes, rainforests, beaches, wildlife. Most tour guides in the country are bilingual, but the conversations that happen in the field, with local guides, with fellow Ticos on a hike — those happen in Spanish. This is where your vocabulary expands fastest.
By day seven, something has shifted. You are not the same Spanish speaker you were when you landed. You have handled real situations, had real conversations, and made real mistakes. More importantly, you are no longer afraid of making them.
Take stock. What situations were easy? Where did you struggle most? What words kept coming up that you did not know? Write them down. These are your next vocabulary targets — not from a textbook, but from your real life in the country.
And when you leave — or if you are staying — there is one phrase that will serve you better than any other:
Say this to the woman at the soda, the taxi driver, the hotel receptionist. They will smile. They will mean it when they say they hope you do.
Emergency Phrases —
What to Say When It Really Matters
No week is complete without these. Have them saved on your phone before you land.
Emergency Spanish — memorize these
Save these on your phone before you landPrepare before
you land.
Four to six private sessions with Gabriela before your trip will make the difference between a first week that exhausts you and one that genuinely transforms you. You will arrive knowing the language — not just the textbook version, but the real Costa Rican Spanish that opens every door.
The book that belongs
in your carry-on.
Tico Talk covers 101 authentic Costa Rican words and phrases — the ones you will actually hear that first week. Phonetic pronunciation, real conversations, and cultural context. Read it on the plane and arrive already speaking Tico. $4.99 on Kindle.
amazon Get Tico Talk — $4.99Frequently Asked Questions
Questions from travelers preparing their first week in Costa Rica.
Less than you think — but more than zero. You can get by in tourist areas with almost no Spanish, but you will have a significantly better experience with even a basic survival vocabulary. The phrases in this article, plus the 10 in our essential phrases guide, cover the vast majority of first-week situations. The most important preparation is not the volume of Spanish you know but the willingness to use what you have, make mistakes, and keep going.
Say: ¿Puede hablar más despacio, por favor? (Could you speak more slowly, please?) or No entendí. ¿Puede repetir? (I didn’t understand. Can you repeat?) Most Costa Ricans will slow down immediately and with good grace. If you still cannot follow, it is perfectly acceptable to say Lo siento, no entiendo bien el español (I’m sorry, I don’t understand Spanish well) — people will find a way to communicate. Nobody in Costa Rica will make you feel bad for not speaking perfectly. The country simply does not work that way.
Exceptionally so — Costa Rica is genuinely one of the most welcoming countries in the world for language learners. Ticos respond to the attempt far more than to the result. A foreigner who tries to speak Spanish, stumbles, laughs at themselves, and tries again will always be treated with warmth and encouragement. The cultural value of pura vida extends to human interactions at every level — patience, warmth, and the genuine belief that things will work out. This makes Costa Rica an ideal environment for anyone learning Spanish.
For day one, prioritize these five: ¡Buenas! (the universal greeting), ¿Cuánto cuesta? (how much does it cost?), ¿Puede hablar más despacio? (can you speak more slowly?), No entiendo (I don’t understand), and Pura vida (used for everything warm and positive). These five will handle the majority of day-one interactions. Everything else can be added as you go.
In genuine emergencies — medical situations, legal issues, or when safety depends on exact understanding — yes, absolutely. But for everyday interactions, try to resist the reflex to reach for your phone before attempting the Spanish yourself. Every time you try and fail in Spanish, you learn something that stays with you. Every time you translate first, you skip that learning. The phone is a safety net, not a first move. Use it as the last resort, not the first one.
Keep going and describe it. If you do not know the word for something, describe what it does or what it looks like: una cosa que se usa para… (a thing you use for…) or el lugar donde… (the place where…). This technique — circumlocution — is used by native speakers of every language when they cannot recall a word. It keeps the conversation moving, demonstrates communicative intelligence, and often results in the other person supplying the word you were looking for. It is a skill, not a failure.