Last night I was at a gathering of people, talking, chatting, selling books, networking and doing my “usual” thing, which is being busy as heck and not getting enough sleep. I got to talking to a very nice Romanian guy that I know here and we got on the subject of interesting and (somewhat) obscure or unusual words in the Romanian language. He taught me … Continue reading Word of the Day: Trudă
I can’t speak for the rest of Romania but lately here in the unicorn-infused metropolis of Cluj-Napoca I’ve been hearing the word prins used a lot in a kind of slang sense. Ordinarily this word is an adjective, coming from the past participle of the verb prinde, which means to “capture” someone, or to “seize” them, or to “arrest” them, or perhaps even to “grab” … Continue reading Word of the Day: Prins
Many, many years ago, I was in Bucharest and I was out in town with a woman on a date. We were climbing some stairs when she slipped and banged her knee into the side of the guardrail. I immediately asked if she was okay (she was) and then she taught me how to say this in Romanian. The adjective to use in this situation … Continue reading Word of the Day: Teafăr
Oh mercy! The other day while speaking with someone, I heard one of my all time favorite Romanian words and I realized I’d never put it on the blog. The word in question is bucluc (book-look), which DEX charmingly describes as “an unpleasant situation” or “discord” or “an argument”. Sometimes it’s difficult to find an exact English translation for Romanian words but in this case … Continue reading Word of the Day: Bucluc
It’s no surprise that Romanians eat a lot of meat (especially pork!) and thus have a lot of slang expressions and euphemisms based on the word carne (meat). One interesting one is în carne și oase, which literally translates to “in meat and bones”. But what does it mean? It’s exactly equivalent to the English expression “flesh and blood”, as in meeting someone in person … Continue reading Expression of the Day: În carne și oase
All Things Romania 