It’s snowing beautifully here in Unicorn City as I write this and I can see that all the news channels are busy pumping the one bit of good news that they have, that the Republic of Moldova has signed a free trade agreement with the European Union at the summit in Vilnius (overshadowed globally by the fact that Ukraine was scheduled to also sign it … Continue reading Forever Put Asunder
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
Although I often write about the strange and mysterious aspects of the Romanian language (and its grammar), sometimes things are fairly straightforward. One example is the prefex “ne” in Romanian, which generally follows right along with the prefix “un” in English, to indicate an opposite meaning. adevarat/neadeverat – true/untrue placut/neplacut – pleasant/unpleasant However there are some words you need to know which – very importantly … Continue reading Double Plus Ungood
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
All Things Romania 