Well yesterday was Easter for Hungarians, Germans and pretty much all the foreigners here in Romania but for the Orthodox church that won’t happen until next Sunday. A useful word to know here in Romania at this time of year is denie (denny-eh) which refers specifically and only to the Orthodox masses held each day during the week before Easter (aka this week right now). … Continue reading Word of the Day: Denie
One of the more fun things you can do in the Romanian language is spontaneously create adjectives from acronyms. One of my favorite is “otevist”, which you won’t find in any dictionary but means “of or relating to OTV” based on the way those letters are pronounced in Romanian (o te vi + st). OTV is short for Oglinda TV or “Mirror” television. It is … Continue reading Word of the Day: Otevist
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
As you trip down the interesting highways and byways of the Romanian language, you come across some words that bisect in unusual ways with English and other languages. An excellent example of this is the Romanian word coajă (kwah-zha), which refers to the “skin” of any plant. In English, this “skin” on a fruit is usually called the “peel” while for trees it is usually … Continue reading Words of the Day: Coaja – Piele
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
All Things Romania 