One of the easiest and most colorful slang words in use today in Romania is mișto (meesh-toe), which is an all-purpose adjective meaning “fun, nice, enjoyable” or sometimes “funny”. I think if I had to choose one English word to universally translate misto as, it would be “delightful” although “cool” would probably be equally common. This is a direct borrowing from the “gypsy” language (rroma), … Continue reading Slang Word of the Day: Misto
Although I’ve written about politeness and being on the receiving end of unexpected rude behavior, I thought I’d correlate all of this together in a more concise way. Over all the years I’ve lived here in Romania, traveling everywhere from Bucharest to living in a remote mountain village, I’ve been treated incredibly well. Yet often I hear many stories of visitors who come here and … Continue reading Rudeness
Sometimes words in Romanian are right on the cusp between slang and “standard” use, a blend between being considered informal, perhaps even vulgar use and an ordinary, common word. You wouldn’t use these words in a job application but it wouldn’t shock your grandmother to say them. One such adjective is the Romanian word fain, pronounced exactly like the English “fine”, based on a similarly … Continue reading Slang Word of the Day: Fain
Although I have unabashedly written many times about tuica, it’s time to dedicate a whole post to it. I grew up in cities and to me, alcohol was something other people made in some far-off place and then bottled it and shipped it to a store for me to buy. How alcohol was made was a mysterious enigma. In Romania, however, making your own alcohol … Continue reading Tuica, Palinca and Horinca
A few years ago, the government re-arranged telephone numbers in this country to make them a lot simpler to use. Nonetheless, it can sometimes be confusing. To understand, let’s look at a real telephone number, that of the mayor of Cluj, the city where I live: +40 264.592.301 To begin with, the +40 is Romania’s country code, so this phone number has been written in … Continue reading Let’s Talk About Telephones
All Things Romania 