Whew, enough posts about me! Let’s talk about a word you’ve likely been hearing a lot in all of those clips and debates, and that is dezvoltare. The word is fairly easy for English speakers to master because it looks a lot like its translation – development. In most cases, it has a very identical meaning and if you look it up in a dictionary … Continue reading Word of the Day: Dezvoltare
You know, a lot of the times my Word of the Day series focuses on either obscure or unusual or linguistically interesting words and I realize this may not be of much use to the person who is just beginning to learn Romanian. If this is you, today you are lucky because the word zebra (zeh-bruh) is not only easy to pronounce but also easy … Continue reading Word of the Day: Zebra
This past weekend I was in Sibiu for their medieval festival and I got to hear a word that was new to me and not yet part of my vocabulary. The cool thing about this word is that one of a rare triplet of synonyms in modern Romanian. As I’ve detailed before, there are lots of Romanian synonyms in which one word comes from a … Continue reading Word of the Day: Norod – Neam – Popor
Coming directly from the Hungarian (and pronounced virtually the same), the word musai (moo-sigh) in Romanian is identical in meaning with the Latin-based word neapărat. Because of its Hungarian origins, musai is generally only used in certain parts of the country, especially the parts with a greater Hungarian influence. Neapărat! AND NOW YOU KNOW! Continue reading Word of the Day: Musai
I’ve had a little fun with this before but one of the most interesting things about the Romanian language is how it takes twists and turns from the Latin. If you’ve been around Romanian long enough, you’ve heard of the MAPN, the acronym for one of the great tongue twisters (for English speakers) of all time, Ministerul Apărării. That translates to the “Ministry of Defense” … Continue reading Word of the Day: Neapărat
All Things Romania 