Lexi-tico: Presa

PRESA (pɾe-sa)

Have you ever tried learning a foreign language? If yes, what would you say is (are) the most challenging aspect (s) of the learning process? Granted, it all depends on the complexity of the language per se, e.g., a Romance language, such as Spanish, which English has inherited dozens of words from (see this interesting article), as opposed to an Asian language, like Mandarin.

Now, even if you do speak Spanish correctly, whether this be your mother tongue or secondary language, there are more than 20 Spanish-speaking countries in the world, each with their own cultural nuances and more than 400 million native speakers of Spanish altogether, meaning this language is second only to Chinese in terms of the most spoken languages in the world.

So, learning a language, as obvious as it may sound, entails much more than being able to utter or pronounce a word in a natural way. There is a “culture” variable.

And, speaking of culture, take the Spanish word “presa” for example. While in some Latin American countries a “presa” is the equivalent of a reservoir dam, it may also refer to a female prisoner, a bird killed by a bird of prey, or even a retaining wall. So, you may be (have been) surprised by the fact that we, Costa Ricans, use the word “presa” to refer to a…traffic jam! Exactly. What you just read… A traffic jam! Language is as puzzling as it gets sometimes…

Example of usage:

1. “La presa cerca del aeropuerto es terrible a esta hora del día”. The traffic jam near the airport is terrible at this time of the day.