Following up on my post A Refreshing Drink of Sweet Water Juice, I thought I’d explore some other common words in the Romanian language which have a number of common variants. When I first moved to Cluj-Napoca and I’d go to the grocery store, the clerk would ask me if I wanted a punga. This is probably the most universal word in Romanian for “bag”, … Continue reading The Net Bag Mini Sack Pack
The other day, a friend of mine posted a rather humorous breakdown of the differences between some words used in Romania and the Republic of Moldova. One of them, in particular, made me smile, as I remember learning all three versions during the course of my adventures in learning the language. Making the issue even more fun is the plethora of ways this particular item … Continue reading A Refreshing Drink of Sweet Water Juice
Word Count: 664 After I wrote my post Afterburner, a commenter made the obvious connection to another kind of food. When I mentioned this to my wife, she just said, “Duh”, and I shook my head in disbelief that I’d missed such low hanging fruit in my original post. Whereas the Romanian word usturoi (garlic) comes from an old Latin verb for “to singe” or … Continue reading Afterburner Part 2
Word Count: 453 One of the cool things about having a wife who is learning Latin (and Greek) is that I’m finally getting some resolution to some etymological mysteries that I’ve had for years with some Romanian words. A case in point is the Romanian word for garlic, which is totally unlike other Romance languages: French: ail Spanish: ajo Italian: aglio Catalan: all All from … Continue reading Afterburner
If you’re like me and you’re trying to learn Romanian by watching the news, you can sometimes get stymied by the (seemingly) hundreds of acronyms that the media uses here. For the past week or so I’ve been keeping a list of the ones I’ve seen. For your own elucidation, here they are in alphabetical order: ANAF – The government agency in charge of collecting … Continue reading Media Acronyms
All Things Romania 