Not that long ago, when some of our grandmothers and grandfathers were tiny children, most of Europe was controlled by one large royal family. One of those royals was born in Britain, speaking English, named Marie. She ended up marrying the German ruler of Romania at the time and, after his death, became queen in her own right – Queen Marie of Romania. For those … Continue reading A Romanian Christmas Tale
Certainly not a “slang” word but just one of those mysterious Romanian words with a shadowy and uncertain past, ajun simply means the day (or night) before an important event. In this case, Ajunul (“the day/night before”) Craciunului (“of the Christmas”) simply means the night/day before Christmas, or as it is said in English, Christmas Eve. If you speak Romanian, I found this religious tale … Continue reading Word of the Day: Ajunul Craciunului
You know, I spent years living in Romania collecting experiences and anecdotes, I wrote hundreds of posts about this country, I quit my job to write a book about traveling and visiting Romania and in the last three weeks I’ve met tons of people to discuss this very subject, right down to giving a couple of hours of my life to do an interview with … Continue reading A Few Tips on Flying to Romania (and elsewhere)
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 