Learning Romanian language

Originally Posted by dragonfly93

I thought a uita meant to forget.

"a uita" does mean to forget. But "a se uita" (reflexive) means "to look at (something)".

(eu) mă uit
(tu) te uiţi
(el-ea) se uită
(noi) ne uitam
(voi) vă uitaţi
(ei-ele) se uită

the only difference is the reflexive verb will always have the reflexive pronoun.

btw, you're welcome with the pronouns and here is a very good document which has them all. it's 183 pages of Romanian grammar. This should get you started.

http://www.seelrc.org:8080/grammar/p...e_romanian.pdf

Thank you Mike, I already downloaded the PDF though.

ahh good.

I was wondering if there is a rule on when to pronounce the "e" at the beginning of a word as "e" and when to pronounce it as "ie". Does it have to do with whether there is a word in front of it, and if so, does it depend on if that word ends in a consonant or vowel?

Originally Posted by dragonfly93

I was wondering if there is a rule on when to pronounce the "e" at the beginning of a word as "e" and when to pronounce it as "ie". Does it have to do with whether there is a word in front of it, and if so, does it depend on if that word ends in a consonant or vowel?

Tis one, i'm not 100%, but i think it sounds like e always except for conjugations of "a fi" that begin with e.

these are pronounced:

eşti = y-eşt
este = y-este
eram = y-eram
erai = y-erai
...etc.

That is true for a fi, but I also hear it in the pronouns el, ea, ei, and ele... And I'm pretty sure they are not verbs

Or are they the only other words besides the a fi conjugations that have the "ie" sound?

I have a question that sprung to mind today:

In English we say "me", "you", etc. wether it be on their own, in sentences like "beside me" or "I love you" etc.
But in Romanian it is different. They say "tu" for "you" and "te iubesc" for "I love you" and "lângă tine" for "beside you".
Why is this? Can someone explain this whole rule/concept to me please?

Originally Posted by dragonfly93

That is true for a fi, but I also hear it in the pronouns el, ea, ei, and ele... And I'm pretty sure they are not verbs

Or are they the only other words besides the a fi conjugations that have the "ie" sound?

ahh yes, you are right. these pronouns also have the "y" sound.

yel, yea, yay and ye-le

Originally Posted by smfc_stevo_smfc

I have a question that sprung to mind today:

In English we say "me", "you", etc. wether it be on their own, in sentences like "beside me" or "I love you" etc.
But in Romanian it is different. They say "tu" for "you" and "te iubesc" for "I love you" and "lângă tine" for "beside you".
Why is this? Can someone explain this whole rule/concept to me please?

tu is a nominative pronoun for "you". te is the accusative pronoun for "you".

in english we use - me, you, him, her, it, us, you-all, them. for the accusative.

in rom, the nominative isn't required bc it is understood by the conjugation of the verb.

iubesc = I love. (I (eu) is in the nominative case )
iubesţi = you love. (you (tu) is in the nominative case)

The accusative asks the question next: who do you love? the answer is "you", of which you use the accusative pronoun. ("te" in this case). "te iubesc"

You'll see "mă, te,îl, o, ne, vă, îi, le" used for the accusative.

mă omori - you're killing me
te vreau - i want you
îl asculţi - (you) listen to him

Or with more stress (but i don't believe it's used often) is :
"te iubesc pe tine" - Is like saying "I love you (and not anyone else).

"te" is the unstressed version of the nominative pronoun "you". There is a stressed version which is "tine". The stressed always requires a preposition before it. (pe tine, cu tine, de tine, la tine, etc.)

mi-e dor de tine - I miss you
mi-a fost dor de tine - I've missed you.
locuieşti cu mine - You live with me.
...etc.

Originally Posted by smfc_stevo_smfc

I have a question that sprung to mind today:

In English we say "me", "you", etc. wether it be on their own, in sentences like "beside me" or "I love you" etc.
But in Romanian it is different. They say "tu" for "you" and "te iubesc" for "I love you" and "lângă tine" for "beside you".
Why is this? Can someone explain this whole rule/concept to me please?

Yes, Mike is correct. Like Latin, Romanian has different cases for pretty much everything. It has a total of 5 cases: nominative, accusative, genitive, dative, and vocative. Each has a different set of pronouns, for indirect and direct object pronouns.

Originally Posted by mike123

ahh yes, you are right. these pronouns also have the "y" sound.

yel, yea, yay and ye-le

I had something else interesting I found, though... In the song "Sare Sare" by Mahay and Cezarmonic, "era" is not pronounced with the "ie" sound... that's why I wanted to know if there was a rule.

Here is the link to the song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ednxEM-xeI

Originally Posted by dragonfly93

I had something else interesting I found, though... In the song "Sare Sare" by Mahay and Cezarmonic, "era" is not pronounced with the "ie" sound... that's why I wanted to know if there was a rule.

Here is the link to the song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ednxEM-xeI

I hear what you mean. But i just confirmed that it should be pronounced: ieram, ierai, iera

edit: I was told that many romanians make this mistake.

By the way, is there a difference between "româneste" and "română" when referring to the language?

Good point Dragonfly. I've often wondered that myself. I've not seen "romana" being used on it's own when referring to the language. Usually "limba romana" but I've heard "romaneste" being used on it's own when referring to the language.

Originally Posted by dragonfly93

By the way, is there a difference between "româneste" and "română" when referring to the language?

română is the language , and româneşte is when you speak about it.

like in "ştiu româneşte"

....if you want to use română , you have to add "limba română".

Hey Mike, in the phrase "multă energie", the "e" îs pronounced as a "ie"... Maybe because multă ends with a vowel???

I'm not all that good at speaking because I don't do enough of it. maybe someday. :-< someone else will have to help with this one.

Originally Posted by dragonfly93

By the way, is there a difference between "româneste" and "română" when referring to the language?

Bună

I heard that if you mean "to speak Romanian", you should say "a vorbi româna", because saying "a vorbi româneşte" means "to speak clearly", i.e. in understandable and coherent way

Originally Posted by dragonfly93

That is true for a fi, but I also hear it in the pronouns el, ea, ei, and ele... And I'm pretty sure they are not verbs

Or are they the only other words besides the a fi conjugations that have the "ie" sound?

No words really have that ye sound, that's just the way most people pronounce it. If you want to speak the words 100% correctly you won't say ye, you'll say a simple e. This comes naturally to us and it usually serves as a way to make a smoother transition between some words. For example if one says "E cald afara" he'll always say E because there's nothing before it.

Originally Posted by mike123

in english we use - me, you, him, her, it, us, you-all, them. for the accusative.

in rom, the nominative isn't required bc it is understood by the conjugation of the verb.

iubesc = I love. (I (eu) is in the nominative case )
iubesţi = you love. (you (tu) is in the nominative case)

The accusative asks the question next: who do you love? the answer is "you", of which you use the accusative pronoun. ("te" in this case). "te iubesc"

You'll see "mă, te,îl, o, ne, vă, îi, le" used for the accusative.

mă omori - you're killing me
te vreau - i want you
îl asculţi - (you) wait for him

Or with more stress (but i don't believe it's used often) is :
"te iubesc pe tine" - Is like saying "I love you (and not anyone else).

"te" is the unstressed version of the nominative pronoun "you". There is a stressed version which is "tine". The stressed always requires a preposition before it. (pe tine, cu tine, de tine, la tine, etc.)

mi-e dor de tine - I miss you
mi-a fost dor de tine - I've missed you.
locuieşti cu mine - You live with me.
...etc.

correct, except il asculti means - you listen to him
te iubesc pe tine is not correct, no one says this, it's basically a repetition. te means pe tine, and although the meaning's the same you use them in different situations.

So tine is not a stressed version of te. Tine is never used on its own anyway, you'll always say "pe tine" which is the same as te but as I said earlier it's used in different situations.

Euridike, you're wrong, a vorbi romaneste = a vorbi romana, although you'll find the latter is used a lot more. But yes, it can have that meaning when someone says something you don't understand, you can say vorbeste romaneste or vorbeste in romana = speak romanian (as in speak so i can understand)

Thank you, Krityx!