Learning Romanian language

So, Wolver:

About dictionaries: I found this one which seems well stuctured. It gives not only the translation and sinonims, but also phrases/expressions to illustrate a certain meaning. It should be of help.
http://www.hallo.ro/

This is another one, but it only lists the terms without further explanation. You could use it for back-up but not as a main source.
http://www.w1.ro/dictionar~englez-roman.html

The same with this one:http://www.diseara.ro/ro/utile/dictionar/englez-roman/

If none of these is ok, I'll look further and let you know.

4) the type of feedback I had in mind is the sound heard about every 30 seconds in the YouTube example. That's what my friend's microphone was doing at the time referred to earlier.
I'll have to see if there is a certain word that describes that. Another word than the one reffering to annoying noise! lol

5) Someone has told me I should forget about Dragobete and focus on Martisor because some Romanians have never heard of Dragobete. Is this correct?
Dragobere and Martisor are two very different things. But I can tell you that in our culture Martisor and 8th of March are far more important and celebrated than Dragobete.

Martisor (the 1st of March) symbolizes the coming of spring. Women get some kind of amulets tied with a white and red string. The string is the symbol of martisor. The amulets(mărțișor-mărțișoare) are things that hang from the string . They have various shapes: horseshoe and clover and chimney-sweeper for luck; little hearts; snowdrops and all kind of other flowers. Lately the amulet "evolved" towards small jewels which can be worn afterwards as well. Traditionally the amulet (mărțișorul) is pinned on the left part of the blouse and is worn throughout the entire month of March.
Oh, and one more thing: only women receive mărțișoare . Men only get to offer.

8th of March is Women's Day. No need to say more: presents, flowers, ETC. You get the point.


6) So what does 'noutăţi' mean in relation to informatie vs informatii?

noutăţi stands for "news". It's a more informal/familiar term. The news you see on TV it's "știri" but the news about yourself, what you have done lately is "noutăţi".

Also the term is used for "new things appeared on the market"
This book store has a lot of newly published books on the shelves=
Această librărie are multe noutăți pe rafturi.

Again, this is an informal term. The expression above can be translated in a formal way, as well
"cărți recent publicate"=newly published books.

Just to make an idea about how mărțișoare look like, I found these photos:
http://entertainment.webshots.com/album/557440171VjGQum
http://travelromania.tripod.com/i_ro...ctures3b_1.htm

could someone please give me a translation of what's on the inside, I want to be sure it is right:

Who needs candy, when you have sweet, adorable me?

So you need this phrase translated into Romanian, and you need it to sound good in Romanian, right?

Ok, this simple phrase in English it's quite difficult to translate in Romanian in an equally simple phrase!

Who needs candy--(in Romanian we'd use the plural for candy in an expression like this)-- Cine are nevoie de bomboane?
Or we'd use "dulciuri" = sweets--> Cine are nevoie de dulciuri?

when you have sweet, adorable me?"-- literally: când mă ai pe mine dulce și adorabilă(adorabil-adorabilă)?

Problem with this phrase is: it doesn't have the same charm as in English!

I guess the only honorable way to translate it would be:

Cine are nevoie de ceva dulce când mă are pe mine?
Who needs something sweet when he/she has me?

If anybody else has a better idea for this translation, be my guests. I'm out of literary inspiration for the moment

ma iei si pe mine???

oare ce vrea sa insemne chestia aia din spatele tau...

ma iei si pe mine la o plimbarica??

eu sunt pe acolo?......

mmmm...nu stiu ce faceti acolo dar mi fomica...

ai grija sa nu cazi....

oare este asa...sau asa...nu stiu ma mai gandesc...

hmmmmm.....nu-mi place deloc...nu mai vb cu tine

Thank you, I ve already tried to translate them (romanian dictionary) but it doesnt make a sense to me... And its really important!

ma iei si pe mine???--Will you take me with you?

oare ce vrea sa insemne chestia aia din spatele tau...--I wonder what that thing behind you means (may mean)?

ma iei si pe mine la o plimbarica??--Will you take me with you for a little walk?

eu sunt pe acolo?......--Am I there?

mmmm...nu stiu ce faceti acolo dar mi fomica...--Mmm, I don't know what you're doing over there but I'm hungry

ai grija sa nu cazi....--Be careful not to fall

oare este asa...sau asa...nu stiu ma mai gandesc...--I wonder if it is like this...or like this... I don't know, I'll think about it

hmmmmm.....nu-mi place deloc...nu mai vb cu tine--Hmmm, I don't like it at all....I'm not talking to you anymore...

Some explanations as to why you didn't find the words in the dictionary:

plimbărică & fomică

Both are the diminutive forms from plimbare(walk, stroll) & foame (hunger).

dya, I only have a minute---

Thank you. The card is in the mail.

The dictionary--hallo.ro--is AMAZING! I think I have doubled my abilities, poor as they are, in both speaking & understanding Romanian with just a few hours of dinking around with it so far. Wow---multumesc!

And that nifty little lesson between you & Lenka was GREAT for this slow learner in Ro.

What a great thread.

dya, thank you sooooooo much, you really helped me

The thing is I like one Romanian guy but i think theres another girl who likes him too

I just wanted to make sure

Actually i ve already started to learn Romanian (2 weeks ago) but i know it ll be a loooooooooong way.

So keep helping people here We appreciate your advices!!!

Wolver, I'm glad the dictionary is ok

Lenka, glad to know I helped you. If you have any other questions..here I am
Oh, and I forgot to mention something in one sentence:

mmmm...nu stiu ce faceti acolo dar mi fomica...--Mmm, I don't know what you're doing over there but I'm hungry

faceti= second person plural. So that person addressed more than one person when saying that sentence.

salut !!

hi my name is michela i'm polish and a little romanian. my best friend is romanian and speaks it fluently. i know a lot but i'd like to kno more. i think i only kno the slang version of words so its hard to translate. thanx for the "lessons" i don't kno how to spell in romanian but heres my best multumesc da?? nu stiu??

Welcome to the forum, Michela123!

Hope our lessons will be of help for you and if you have any questions, don't hesitate to ask

Originally Posted by dya

For those of you who are still at the very beggining, I want to tell you about the letters/sounds we have in Romanian but which are not to be found in English, for example. You'll bump into this letters/sounds really frequently and maybe you want to know how to pronounce them

ă-- this sound is pronounced as "e" in mother, father. It's also known as the sound one makes when he/she doesn't know the answer to a question

î/â- these two letters are the representation of the same sound. î is found (in writing) only as the very first or the very last letter in a word. If it is in the middle of the word, it's written â Quite difficult to explain its pronounciation: imagine you have to pronounce uh in english as if you see something you don't like. Now cut the "h" sound out of that and you'll remain with something close to the actual pronounciation of the word in Romanian.

ș--- these is pronounced like the group of letters sh in mushroom.

ț-- this sound does not exist in English. For those of you familiar with Greek language, it is to be read as tz. For those who are not familiar with Greek: try to proonounce T+Z very quickly as to make it one sound. You'll get pretty close of the actual pronounciation.

Now that you know the rules, listen to some Romanian songs and try to ideantify these sounds as they are pronounced by the singers.

One negative aspect is that many times you'll find texts written without the diacritics so you'll find a, i, s, t instead of ă, î, ș ,ț . But in time, once you get used to the language, you'll be able to tell which is which even if they are written the same

Hello Dya!

I am Mara. It is very nice of you to want to teach other people Romanian. I am trying to learn romania and this is very helpful! I am at the very beginning and already i have questions. First of all, is it possible to be able to communicate with Romanians if i can t pronounce correctly the difficult a and i you have? It is really impossible for me to say them! You see, i am from Greece and we don t have these sounds to our language. I have tried to say them, but without any success! If you are from Romania you will understand when i tell you that i can t say lemon in romanian....they hear something completely different and they start laughing!

I also want to ask you if you can teach us somehow grammar. The endings of verbs in tenses.

Thank you very much!!

Mara

Originally Posted by Lenka

dya, thank you sooooooo much, you really helped me

The thing is I like one Romanian guy but i think theres another girl who likes him too

I just wanted to make sure

Actually i ve already started to learn Romanian (2 weeks ago) but i know it ll be a loooooooooong way.

So keep helping people here We appreciate your advices!!!

Hey ! Be optimistic, how hard can it be ? Give a try and fallow your feelings
Just tell him and assure he's in love with you
Regards

Originally Posted by mara

Hello Dya!

I am Mara. It is very nice of you to want to teach other people Romanian. I am trying to learn romania and this is very helpful! I am at the very beginning and already i have questions. First of all, is it possible to be able to communicate with Romanians if i can t pronounce correctly the difficult a and i you have? It is really impossible for me to say them! You see, i am from Greece and we don t have these sounds to our language. I have tried to say them, but without any success! If you are from Romania you will understand when i tell you that i can t say lemon in romanian....they hear something completely different and they start laughing!

I also want to ask you if you can teach us somehow grammar. The endings of verbs in tenses.

Thank you very much!!

Mara

Hey Mara . Welcome between us . Dya is a very good teacher
It's just a little difficult to say ş, ţ, ă, î. But no problems... Look . "Ş" looks "ch" from "chocolate" in French or "x" in Catalan If you know. "Ţ" it's like ts from Greek. Hmmm... I hope you know French because "ă" sounds like the interjeciton "baaaa" and "î"... Imagine when you want to pick up a heavy bag and you make îîîîîîîîîîîîîîîh .
Now you understand ?
And lemmon LĂ-MÎ-IE .

For any help ... Ask !

Multumesc, Igrec

Mara, welcome to the forum It will be my absolute pleasure to help you with romanian. Cause you may also help me with Greek

First of all I just want to tell you that Romanian and Greek grammar have a lot in common when it comes to the structures used. For you it's going to be easy to understand that every verb has a different ending for every person. That adjectives change their ending according to the nouns. Then, word order in sentences is pretty much alike in both languages.
I kept saying around here that in order to learn Romanian you have to think Romanian so that you can understand how to put words in a sentence. For you, I can say that you can think Greek cause most of the times, the structures are alike

Now, to answer your question: it's pretty awkard to speak Romanian without those sounds because each of them has the non-diacritic equivalent ă, â--- a, ș---s, ț---t and there are many words in which if you pronounce the normal letter instead of the diacritic one you actually say another word.

Just one example:
fata---the girl
fața-- the face

or

râu--river
rău--bad

and so on. So, you actually have to find a way to pronounce these sounds.

Igrec gave you a few hints, I could think about others who could help you.

For example ș---it's pretty close to how you pronounce Vissi in Anna Vissi.

I'll think of other ways and let you know.

As for the verbs, I need some time to prepare this "lesson". It's maybe the most complicated thing to learn and I strongly believe that the best way to learn the verbs is by actually using/seeing/hearing/reading them as much as you have the chance.

Unlike English(or Greek) the rules are just "orientative".

I'm not talking about irregular verbs(because one way or another most verbs in Romanian have something different from the rule). I'm talking about all the verbs.

Cristina said something about the verbs on page 4, she wrote the 4 categories. The verbs are categorized like that according to their ending in the infinitive form. But not even inside one category all the verbs behave the same.

Just one example: When you conjugate a verb you remove the ending from the infinitive and remain with the root. That's the part of the word to which you add the specific endings for every person.

The bad news is that sometimes the root changes from one person to another.

An few examples to illustrate my point:
A clear verb in the first category: a cânta--to sing. The root is cânt which is also the form for the 1st pers. sg.
cânt
cânți
cântă
cântăm
cântați
cântă

But here is another verb from the first category/conjugation: a mânca--to eat. The first change is the very root of it! Because the root is not what's left after you remove -a. It's actually mănân for the singular and for the 3rd person plural. For the first and second persons plural the root changes from mănân to mânc

mănânc
mănânci
mănâncă
mâncăm
mâncați
mănâncă

To learn the verbs by the rules is a mission impossible because you'd actually have to learn EACH and EVERY verb in order to make sure you apply the rules correctly.

I guess for the begining, it is only good for you to know that in the present tense:
1. The ending for the 1st pers. sg. is to be learnt as it is, because there's not a rule.
2. the 2nd pers. sg, usually has an i at the end
3. the 3rd pers. sg. usualy has an ă at the end
4. the 1st person pl. usually has an m at the end
5. the 2nd pers. pl. usually has an ți
6. the 3rd pers. pl. usually is the same with the 3rd pers. sg. meaning it ends in ă

These hints may help the ones who start learning the language to at least try and identify the person of the verb. These are not grammar rules, this is not the norm/pattern to folow and learn from. These are only hints for you to know in what letter is most likely to end a verb in present tense, for all persons. It is orientative, but it may be of help. At least at the begining.

Right dya..a bit complicated with the verbs..I let them for a while because i didn't find the way to explain them to the people...:P
I realize now that our language is very difficult to explain...but we'll do it..
I didn't post anything in the las weks..Hmmm..very very bad !!!Shame on me but I am very busy at work..
I promise I'll come with new things

I was busy myself so I know exactly what you mean, Cristina

As for the verbs... I really can't find a pattern to explain the thing with the root.

And with the first person singular. Because in the same conjugation, the ending for the first pers. sg. apparently has no rule:
a manca--mănânc
a cânta-cânt
a juca--joc
a termina--termin
a lucra--lucrez
a căuta--caut
a juca--joc
a dansa--dansez
ETC

Can you see a pattern ?! Yes, some of them add -ez but which ones? How do we categorize them? I have to search more on this subject.

Cu plăcere Dya. Am zis adevărul...
Nu m-aş fi gîndit niciodată că limba noastră e atît de grea ! Însă e atît de plăcută ! Voi fetele ce mai faceţi ?
Toate cele bune de la Iaşi . Aaa... şi nişte zăpadă !