Certainly not a “slang” word but just one of those mysterious Romanian words with a shadowy and uncertain past, ajun simply means the day (or night) before an important event. In this case, Ajunul (“the day/night before”) Craciunului (“of the Christmas”) simply means the night/day before Christmas, or as it is said in English, Christmas Eve. If you speak Romanian, I found this religious tale … Continue reading Word of the Day: Ajunul Craciunului
One word you’ll definitely never find in any dictionary is this word “nush“, occasionally written as “nuş”. Although when I say “written” I mean that only in online, “slangy” conversations will you ever see it in written form as it won’t appear in newspapers, magazines or books. It is however used in every day (verbal) conversations a lot more often. What is it? A contraction … Continue reading Slang Word of the Day: Nush
Yesterday we talked about the Possessive A and now it’s time to follow up with a similar grammar entity – the personal pronoun. In English these are fairly simple – my (mine), your(s), his, hers, ours and theirs. Spanish likewise, mio(s)/mia(s), nuestro(s)/nuestra(s), etcetera. Romanian is a little more complicated of course ;) Let’s start off with the words for “my”, which vary by gender and … Continue reading His, Hers, Mine, Yours, Ours and Theirs: Part 1
Part one can be found here. A few months ago, I mentioned that on the back of all Romanian money it says Banca Nationala a Romaniei and someone asked what that “a” means, and how to use it. As we know quite well, Romanian is a language with declinations, which means that the “receiving” noun has a special form which can denote possession. Ex: Centrul … Continue reading The Possessive “A”
The other night at the book party a couple of people I’ve written about many times on this website attended and it was great catching up with them. One of them used a word I knew quite well but had forgotten about: mess. It’s a local short form of the longer “Yahoo Messenger”, the instant messaging program, although sometimes Romanians just call any IM program … Continue reading Slang Word of the Day: Mess
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