Essential Spanish phrases

'What's up?' — the Dominican greeting, and the one everyone types as 'klk'. Answer 'todo bien' or 'aquí, en la lucha'. Using it once will get you further than a month of textbook Spanish.

The corner shop, and the single most useful institution in Dominican life. It sells everything by the unit, delivers on a motorbike for nothing, extends credit to regulars ('fiao'), and doubles as the block's bar and news service.

A little bit. 'Un chin de azúcar' is a little sugar; 'un chin-chin' is even less. Dominicans use it constantly and it has no equivalent elsewhere in Spanish.

The bus, the shared route taxi, and the motorbike taxi. A concho runs a fixed corridor and picks up until nobody else fits; a motoconcho is faster, cheaper and the main reason people buy their own helmet.

'The power's gone.' You will say this a lot. The follow-up question is always about the building's inversor — the battery bank that keeps the lights and fans alive through an apagón.

In Dominican usage this usually means 'in a while', not 'right now' — the opposite of the Mexican sense. If you need something immediately, say 'ahora mismo'.

Calle El Conde, the pedestrian spine of the Ciudad Colonial, and 'la Zona' — how everyone refers to the colonial quarter. Say 'la Zona Colonial' and you sound like a guidebook.

'A cold one' — a Presidente beer, ordered by temperature rather than by brand, and expected to arrive in a jacket of ice. Asking for a 'vestida de novia' means the bottle should be frosted white.

'The Dominican flag' — the national lunch of rice, red beans and stewed meat, with salad or tostones. Every comedor serves it and it is the benchmark for whether a place is any good.

A streetwise operator. It swings from admiring to insulting depending entirely on tone — 'ese tíguere resuelve' is praise, 'no te fíes de ese tíguere' is a warning.

To sort something out through improvisation and contacts rather than through the official channel. It is the organising principle of Dominican bureaucracy and the reason a gestor exists.

Help — call 911. The Dominican Republic runs a single national emergency number for police, fire and ambulance, and Greater Santo Domingo was the first area it covered.