I think one of my favorite slang words in Romania is marfă (mar-fuh), although I don’t use it very often. The standard use of the word marfa is as a noun to indicate “cargo” or “manufactured goods” or sometimes “freight”, borrowed directly from a Hungarian word (márha) that means cattle or livestock. In slang usage however this becomes an adjective and is used to indicate … Continue reading Slang Word of the Day: Marfa
One of the easiest and most colorful slang words in use today in Romania is mișto (meesh-toe), which is an all-purpose adjective meaning “fun, nice, enjoyable” or sometimes “funny”. I think if I had to choose one English word to universally translate misto as, it would be “delightful” although “cool” would probably be equally common. This is a direct borrowing from the “gypsy” language (rroma), … Continue reading Slang Word of the Day: Misto
Although I’ve written about politeness and being on the receiving end of unexpected rude behavior, I thought I’d correlate all of this together in a more concise way. Over all the years I’ve lived here in Romania, traveling everywhere from Bucharest to living in a remote mountain village, I’ve been treated incredibly well. Yet often I hear many stories of visitors who come here and … Continue reading Rudeness
Sometimes words in Romanian are right on the cusp between slang and “standard” use, a blend between being considered informal, perhaps even vulgar use and an ordinary, common word. You wouldn’t use these words in a job application but it wouldn’t shock your grandmother to say them. One such adjective is the Romanian word fain, pronounced exactly like the English “fine”, based on a similarly … Continue reading Slang Word of the Day: Fain
If there is one national “comfort food” in Romania, it has to be the dish sarmale, inherited from the long centuries of Turkish rule. Simply put, sarmale (sar-mall-eh) are cabbage leaves which are folded around a special filling into little “packages” and then (further) cooked. Because this is a Balkans-wide dish, there are as many variants of sarmale but the Romanian version generally has two … Continue reading Sarmale
All Things Romania 