Chero / chera
Mate, buddy — the Salvadoran friend-word, and the one Salvadorans abroad recognise each other by.
Related lesson: Salvadoran Spanish: A Survival Guide.
Hear it in context
¿Vamos a comer pupusas, chero?
Shall we go and eat pupusas, mate?
Ese es mi chero del colegio, nos conocemos desde cipotes.
That's my old school friend — we've known each other since we were kids.
Anoche salí con toda la cherada.
Last night I went out with the whole crew.
What It Actually Means
Chero / chera is a friend — the Salvadoran occupant of the slot Colombia fills with parcero, Peru with pata and Spain with colega. It works as a vocative (ey, chero) and as a description (es un chero mío), and it implies genuine friendship rather than mere acquaintance: your chero is someone you would call at midnight. The collective cherada covers the whole group of them.
Where It Comes From
Most often explained as a worn-down compañero — compañero to cumpañero to chero — which is plausible and unproven; nobody has documented the intermediate steps, and other accounts have been floated without evidence either. It is shared with Honduras, where it is just as common, which is what you would expect of a word that spread along the region’s roads rather than out of one capital.
How Natives Use It
Informally and constantly: mi chero, los cheros del barrio, es bien chero conmigo (he’s a good friend to me). The feminine chera is fully in use, both for a female friend and by women about each other. Abroad it is a passport — a Salvadoran in Los Angeles who hears chero across a shop counter knows exactly where the speaker’s family is from, in a way that amigo could never tell them.
Common Pitfall
Keep it to the informal register: chero in a work email or to a client sounds like backslapping a stranger. And do not assume the neighbours’ equivalents are equally safe — Guatemala’s nearest word between close male friends is cerote, which is exactly as rude as it looks and belongs to people who have earned it, so borrowing it across the border on the strength of “they mean the same thing” goes badly. In El Salvador, stick with chero and let maje do the rougher work.