Do you remember those three words which meant “cool” in Romanian, especially the word tare?

If you do, you remember that the root meaning of the original word is “strong” or “heavy” or “tough” and the like.

Today’s word is: vagány.

Hopa! This is an entirely Hungarian word and never used in Romanian. I went down from my kingdom and visited a Hungarian friend of mine today and realized it was high time to throw in a few Hungarian words into the “blog mix” as well. Today’s word is her recommendation, by the way :D

In this case vagány means “rough” or “tough”, quite similar to both beton and tare in Romanian.

Likewise, the slang use of the word  vagány also means “cool” as in trendy, neat-o, brilliant or awesome.

Hungarian pronunciation is another kettle of fish, so I can just estimate it here is vuh-gan-yuh. My Hungarian friend, having lived in Cluj all her life, would like me to tell you that the “Koloszvar” accent would make the emphasis in this word on the first syllable.

She also wanted me to remind you that there’s a separate word that’s quite similar – vágány, which means peron in Romanian and “platform” at a rail station in English.

Funny note: It’s always hilarious when people in other countries modify the name of Hollywood movies. I think my all time favorite is that the movie “The Sound of Music” is known in Spanish as “Sonrisas y Lágrimas” (Smiles and Tears). Priceless!

In Hungarian, the movie “The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood” is called Vagány nők klubja which means “The cool club of womanhood”. Fantastic!

ES MOST MAR TUDOD!