Before I came to Spain I thought Spanish was just Spanish, sure you've got different dialects all over Latin America but when you got down to it, it's all just Spanish. Thing is, here Spanish is often referred to as Castellano, because aside from from regional dialects you've got parts of the country that speak something altogether different like Euskera, Catalan and Gallego. The last two seem like a combo of Spanish, French and Portuguese, which makes sense given their Latin origins, but Euskera, from Basque Country, is in another league, some say it comes from barbaric tribes that populated Spain before the Romans and that were never actually conquered by them, the Arabs or the Catholic Kings that came later. Basque Country is dense forests and hilly, a terrain that's closed off and very different climatically from the rest of Spain.
Now, I've come across a person from nearly every Spanish-speaking country and picked up the lingo from their respective countries but Spain is a microcosm of Latin America. Here's a vocabulary guide to some of the slang I've come across out here, I'm sure I'll continuously update it.
Guay - adj. it basically means cool. You're gonna use this shit a lot here. It's like chido for Mexicans, chevere for a Venezuelan and chivo for us Salvadorans.
Friki - n. comes from freaks or freaky, without a doubt. Used to describe a misfit or outlandish person or a geek. A computer geek would be a "friki". Doesn't have to have a negative connotation.
Genial - adj. used much more than its English counterpart, it's used in place of great or nice.
Tí@ - n. refers to a guy or chick in the colloquial Castellano. You hear this all over the place here in Spain.
Tronco - n. also refers to a dude in the colloquial way and is particular to Madrid.
Buen@ - adj. means a hot person.
Cachonda - n. this one is tricky, it can mean a hot girl, a horny girl or a slutty girl. I thought I had a handle on this one but I've altogether decided not to use it, not worth the potential offense. Cachondo, on the other hand, is typically used to describe a humorous guy.
Cachondeo - n. can mean laughter, silliness or having a good time, I heard this a lot when I worked at a school, it was used by the teachers when they were scolding the children for laughing a lot and making noise.
Maj@ - n. + adj. it can mean a nice person or a hot person, it all depends on how it's used, can also be used interchangeably with guap@.
Guap@ - n. + adj. it's a handsome or attractive person, in general, but in Madrid they use it plainly, it doesn't have to have a meaning or compliment behind it, it can be used to simply address you without using your name. I got hype the first time someone addressed me this way but you soon figure out it ain't like that.
Follón - n. is a big mess, comes from follar (to fuck), anytime you add -on to the end of a word it makes it big, like botellon, which means big bottle.
Botellón - n. you'll be doing a lot of this in Spain, it means a get-together in a park, typically to pre-game before heading out. You can do it in a plaza, park or any other public place and it can involve spliffs or shishas but, above else, it means drinking in public. You can't botellon without a bottle of something alcoholic.
"!!!" - this one is a sound, similar to a sucking noise but slightly different, you make it by putting your tongue on the roof of your mouth and snapping it out, the Spanish use it in place of "well", I'd say. It definitely has a meaning, this sound, though it's hard to recognize at times.
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