Dude — or fool, depending on who is talking.
In Honduras and El Salvador maje works as both "dude" between friends and "idiot" when sharp. Costa Rica's "mae" is the same word worn down, but there it lost the insult entirely.
Sharper than Costa Rican mae. Between friends it is fine; with strangers it is not.
Reading a definition isn't the same as saying it to someone. Lingo Kaiava is a voice tutor set to Honduran Spanish — it uses maje the way locals do, corrects you in the moment, and never "fixes" the way real people actually talk into textbook Honduran Spanish.
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