Learning Romanian language

1. Dă prioritate camionului! = Give priority to the truck!
. I want to check if I understand this.
2. Îi e foame bietului copil, dă-ţi-i ceva de mâncare! = The poor child is starving, give him something to eat!
. beit(ului) is an adjective. Would the context remain consistent if it had been written as 'copilului biet'?
. dă-ţi-i = dă, iţi and îi? or (you give to him sth (mâncare)) correct?
. . is this phrase shortened (with 2 hyphens) as such because the verb used is imperative?

Dear Mike, I don't think you can say in English give priority when it comes to driving.The correct way is, if i remember well, this:
Give the truck right of way!
Both sentences contain imperative forms.In Romanian Imperative expresses a strong request or an order!!!
Yes, biet is an adjective and as you might already know, the topic of Romanian words within the sentence always places the noun first and the adjective after the noun.When there is an inversion, as here, then the adjective takes the article of the noun, in this case ''lui'' which is a Dativ form.I suppose you know the cases, if not tell us!
As regarding the pronoun, it has short and long forms, for each case, certain forms.
Here i is the short form for dativ, which answers the question CUI?=to whom
The forms are:
lui - ii - i
Anything else u need to know, just tell us.I hope I ve been helpful.

Thanks so much for the explanation. As always, it is greatly appreciated. You've been very helpful.

As for the dative nouns, i have only just begun working with them. But I have seen them many times on dexonline.ro and dictionare.com.

For the dative pronouns, I struggle mostly understanding pronouns. I don't always know when to use the dative as opposed to the accusative. One day it will click, but as for now I do the best I can.

Mainly, I have noticed that dative pronouns are used with specific verbs (a plăcea, a da), so I make it a point to choose them when using these verbs. I don't think this is the correct way to do it, but until I understand it....

You have said dative asks "To whom (Cui)". Perhaps I should think in these terms until I can understand it.

With regards to "dă-ţi-i", I am still a bit unclear how to form this. Could this have been written without the short form? If so, then what would it look like?

Hello Mike!


Here's how the sentence is written correctly in Romanian:



Îi e foame bietului copil, daţi-i ceva de mâncare!
daţi = imperative form 2nd person plural of the verb "a da" (to give)
-i = short form of "lui" (to him) - dative form that asks "to whom?"

Multumesc mult Lady_A.

Is it correct to observe the "ţi" in both as being the same?

da-ţi and daţi

If true, then why is the word hyphenated?
If not, please help me understand the -ţi-

No, -ţi is not the same in both examples


da-ţi is not a correct form, the right way to write it is dă-ţi that means "give to yourself" where
dă- is the imperative form 2nd pers sing. of the verb "a da"
-ţi - short form of the pronoun "ţie"

daţi - present tense 2nd pers plural and imperative 2nd pers plural of the verb "a da" where "-ţi" is just mark of the plural form of the verb.


Hope I've helped...

Dear Mike, as lady A says, "ţi" can be either a short form of the pronoun or the common ending for verbs at the second person, plural.I will only add some examples, maybe u can see it better

a alerga

eu alerg
tu alergi
el aleargă
noi alergăm
voi alergaţi
ei/ele aleargă

a aduce

eu aduc
tu aduci
el aduce
noi aducem
voi aduceţi
ei aduc


As regarding the short form of the pronoun, for Dative it goes as follows:
cui? ţie, îţi, ţi

Examples:

Ţie îţi place poezia?=do u like the poem?

Îţi spun că nu am citit cartea.=I am telling you I haven't read the book.

Nu-ţi spun nici un cuvânt.=I tell u not a single word.

As to the cases, you will never know them unless u know the question for each case.I'll try make a table with all of them, maybe u can understand better, ok?

Thank you both for the wonderful explanations. I understand it much better thanks to your help.

Emyiakab, A table would be greatly appreciated if it is no trouble

Speaking about the Dative, there's a couple things I've never understood. These things are mainly from songs so... yeahh

Ex.

Why would they say

"Zâna îi dă mâna prinţului"

but then

"Spune-i ploi să nu cadă"

??

Why would you have to put "prinţ" in the dative but not "ploi?"

Like, if I wanted to say "The boy gives the dog the ball," would I say:

1.) Băiatul dă mingea câinelui?

or

2.) Băiatul îi dă mingea câinelui?

or

3.) Băiatul îi dă mingea câine?

or something fancy like

4.) Mingea i-o dă câinelui? (Or whatever it'd be like)

or could you use

5.) Baiatul ii da mingea pe caine?

I personally just wanna go with the second one because it sounds like Spanish Thanks for any help!

hii


"Zâna îi dă mâna prinţului" - correct


"Spune-i ploii să nu cadă"


Why would you have to put "prinţ" in the dative but not "ploi?"
Because there was a typo (or not lol cause many romanians don't write this type of words correctly). To be in dative it should've had 2 "i"s. Another tricky word would be copii (plural) - copiii (articulated word)


Like, if I wanted to say "The boy gives the dog the ball," would I say:

1.) Băiatul dă mingea câinelui?
this is very used in romanian.. but i'm not pretty sure if it's correct sounds ok to me though

2.) Băiatul îi dă mingea câinelui?
Correct


3.) Băiatul îi dă mingea câine?
wrong

or something fancy like

4.) Mingea i-o dă câinelui? (Or whatever it'd be like)
absolutely correct but it's not really used

or could you use

5.) Baiatul ii da mingea pe caine?
no, u can't

So in the end u were right, the 2nd is the best choice hehehe

hope i've helped

Ah-Hah!!! Thanks you so much ness!! ^_^

întrebări vă rog?

Pe acest om îl cunosc de când aveam șase ani.

1. Did I translated this correctly.... "I've known this man since I/we have been six years old."

2. Re: Translation.... Something doesnt feel right about it. Probably bc this is Romanian and not English. But what is "aveam" doing in the sentance? And would "eram" also be acceptable?

3. Is "îl cunosc" in the present tense because "de când" follows it? Or just because it's not english?

4. How would I know to use "I" or "we" in the translation with only "aveam" to go by? Did I overlook something in the sentance or is this strictly a context issue that I'll have to live with during these excersizes?


Thanks in advance
mike

I hope everyone is having a great weekend.

Originally Posted by mike123

întrebări vă rog?

Pe acest om îl cunosc de când aveam șase ani.

1. Did I translated this correctly.... "I've known this man since I/we have been six years old."

2. Re: Translation.... Something doesnt feel right about it. Probably bc this is Romanian and not English. But what is "aveam" doing in the sentance? And would "eram" also be acceptable?

3. Is "îl cunosc" in the present tense because "de când" follows it? Or just because it's not english?

4. How would I know to use "I" or "we" in the translation with only "aveam" to go by? Did I overlook something in the sentance or is this strictly a context issue that I'll have to live with during these excersizes?


Thanks in advance
mike

I hope everyone is having a great weekend.

1. The right translation is "I've known this man since I have been six years old."

2. Maybe you already know, but in Romanian when we talk about age, we use the verb "to have" and not "to be" as in English: Am 5 ani = I am six years old.

3. "îl cunosc" is present tense because the person you talk about is still alive

4. You get to know which person to use by looking at the verb:

il cunosc = I know him
il cunoastem = we know him



You actually have to sentences (a phrase) because you have two verbs:

Pe acest om îl cunosc / de când aveam șase ani.

but I don't want to complicate it any more for you

If you have other questions, we are here!

Just a minor correction:
I've known this man since I was six years old.

In this context, the verb referring to the age is in the (English) past tense, because the person is not 6 years old anymore.

Thank you Lady A. Your explanation is not confusing and it is very useful. However, I would love to clarify one thing for my understanding.

How would the sentance be written if the speaker wanted to say....

"....since we were 6 years old."

"....ne cunoaştem de când aveam șase ani."

Originally Posted by mike123

Thank you Lady A. Your explanation is not confusing and it is very useful. However, I would love to clarify one thing for my understanding.

How would the sentance be written if the speaker wanted to say....

"....since we were 6 years old."

"....ne cunoaştem de când aveam șase ani."

The right way to put it is:

"...îl cunoaştem de cand aveam 6 ani".

"îl" remains the same as we reffer to the same person (we know HIM since we were 6).

Dear Mike

Do you know anything about Latin?Anyway, as Romanian is of Latin origin, I have to tell you that for each person any verb has a certain ending. So, you recognize the person speaking only if you know this basic rule. If the verb has the same form in singular and plural, then you must look in the sentence before, or in the whole text.
It is not the case of the verb "a cunoaste":

eu cunosc
tu cunoşti
el/ea cunoaşte
noi cunoaştem
voi cunoaşteţi
ei cunosc

It is the case of the verb to have, which has the same form for 1st person singular and plural if you use indicativ imperfect:
eu aveam, noi aveam

But you must see that if the second sentence of the phrase does not have a precise subject, expressed (in Romanian subject can be expressed or unexpressed), then it is the same subject as in the first sentence, even if it is not expressed.

Like this: Eu îl cunosc de când (eu) aveam 6 ani!

But you will NEVER find in Romanian such a repetition of the subject.
Romanian has what it is called included subject.Why included?because it is indicated by the form of the verb, in it's ending.Usually when we speak we don't start the sentence, as in English, with the subject expressed through a pronoun.The form of the verbs makes you see the subject.Examples:

(eu) alerg seara
(tu) cunosti problema mea?
(el) merge la cinema

We would say all these sentences without the pronoun I put in between breakets and still know the subject, because it is indicated by the form of the verb.Can you understand this???Is it too complicated?

Thank you Lady_A and Emyiakab

It is not too complicated Emyiakab. And I understand a little more every time someone here helps me.

I will read through both posts several times and I will return with questions as I require them!

Mulţumesc pentru tot!

O întrebare vă rog. Poti să mi-ajutaţi cu o traducere?

V-am spus numai vouă despre ce este vorba.
>> I only told you'all about what he/she said. ?

Nu înţeleg la cuvânt "vorba".

Google Traducere a spus: (şi urasc asta!)

vorba=
substantiv

1. word
2. words
3. say
4. saying
5. discussion
6. gossip
7. talk
8. story
9. subject
10. agreement
11. peep
12. pepper
13. rumor
14. rumour
15. accent

Dear Mike

"despre ce este vorba'' is an expression that means what it's all about.
otherwise vorba means basically word.

Am o vorba cu tine=I have a word with you.

So the correct translation would be:
I have told nobody but you what it is all about.

I think....