Hello, My friend Justin Blair and I made the documentary “Across the Forest” about the supernatural beliefs that still exist in the villages of Transylvania. We knew of the reputation Transylvania had in the west and wanted to bring to light something more truthful than the misconceptions perpetuated by the pop culture machine. If you send me a mailing address we would be glad to … Continue reading Mailbag!
Only in Romania I think is there a specific word – zât – used to yell at animals to get them to go away. It’s pronounced something like zut! I had to laugh because Jeff Foxworthy used to do a stand-up routine about his father using a phrase in Redneck English meaning the exact same thing, which you can hear here. AND NOW YOU KNOW! Continue reading Word of the Day: Zât
I was listening to manele (as I am wont to do hehe) this morning while cleaning the house and heard this “word” aoleu and it made me laugh as I’ve heard my neighbors use it a million times. It’s an interjection, which means it’s something people suddenly exclaim and is never “conjugated” or modified in any way (grammatically). There are about a million variants of … Continue reading Slang Word of the Day: Aoleu!
One of the interesting things about studying the Romanian language is the number of lexical doublets, meaning that quite often two similar words are used, one from a Latin root and one from a non-Latin (usually Slavic) root. English has many of these, including lord and master, venison and deer, fire and flame or sheep and ewe. If you are familiar with other Romance languages … Continue reading Lexical Doublets
I’m sure many of you have been following along with the events unfolding in Egypt, incredibly reminiscent of Romania’s own 1989 revolution. My hat is definitely off to Al-Jazeera‘s live coverage (in English) as it has been phenomenal. The center of Egypt’s protests is in “Tahrir Square”, also known as “Midan” (sometimes Maidan) Tahrir, which translates to Liberation (Tahrir) Square (Maidan). I recognized this word … Continue reading Word of the Day: Maidanez
All Things Romania 