Well today is December 1, Romania’s big national holiday where this country celebrates its (brief) union in 1918 – not even 100 years ago! Woke up shocked to see the main Google page had the logo above. Actually today is a little bittersweet. In 1918, the union all of the various Romanian-speaking lands, which is what this day commemorates, did not last long. Today all … Continue reading Romania’s National Day – December 1
I wish I could take credit for assembling the following but it is from an excellent Romanian grammar textbook I found online (PDF). pac! a hit, a shot poc! a hit, a strike buf! the fall of (esp) a large and heavy object bum! an explosion, a loud boom trosc! wood breaking, a slap pleosc! a splash, the sound of something falling in water, a … Continue reading Imitative Interjections in Romanian
Since I realize not everyone reading this blog has been to Romania, or perhaps not America, or even neither, I thought I’d be kind of fun to pull back from the great, wider perspective a little and focus on the more tangible. It’s easy to talk about “Romania” as a giant , singular entity but sometimes a more personal look reveals interesting things. Nothing’s more … Continue reading Walking 1.609 Kilometers In My Shoes
Today I went down to visit my (cats’) veterinarian, who is Hungarian, and asked her for another local slang word to pass on. Serendipitously, I ended up meeting an extremely nice Hungarian lady later on in a separate circumstance, so today I’ve been using more Hungarian than the last month combined. Today’s word is: gáz (goz). In it’s normal use as a noun it means … Continue reading Hungarian Word of the Day: Gáz
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
