In Romanian there are several ways to indicate the possessive. One of them follows some rather lengthy but logical rules and we’ll get into that one at a later time. Today we’re going to talk about people’s possessions when you USE THEIR NAME. What follows is only for when using a person’s actual name. In English it’s quite simple – if it is a car … Continue reading Personal Possession in Romanian: Part 1
Back during the summer, I unwittingly was called onto a stage and thrust directly into the action. It was my very first appearance on the Romanian theater. One of the lines I had to repeat twice included a word I did not know at the time. Later I asked about it and added it to my vocabulary. The other day while standing in an alley, … Continue reading Word of the Day: Hal
Muchisimas gracias to commenter Andrei for reminding me of one of the funniest “slang” words in Romanian. The word is ioi, pronounced “yoy” as if it rhymed exactly with “toy”. This word apparently doesn’t exist in the DEX but I’ve seen Romanians debate its origin and exact meaning. Nonetheless, it is almost identical to another Romanian word, vai (vye) which has the best definition in … Continue reading Slang Word of the Day: Ioi!
Well folks there was a lot of commentary on the Word of The Day ba and how there’s a similar word, bă. In other words, everything I said about ba was correct. The word bă (with the “a with a hat”), pronounced something like buh or beh is different. Bă is an interjection and roughly means “hey you”. As the commenters noted, it is identical … Continue reading Word of the Day: Bă
Speaking of absolutely no Slavic influence whatsoever in the Romanian language, it’s a good time to look at the word iar (yar). If you are a native English (or Italian/Spanish/French etc) speaker than you have to understand that in some *coughcough* languages there’s actually two ways to say the word “and”. If you’re a beginner student of the Romanian language the word you need to … Continue reading Word of the Day: Iar
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