Linguata
Learning Romanian
Romanian is a fascinating language. Because it is Indo-European in origin its structure and way of working mean that the English speaker can make useful progress at a basic level without having to enter too deeply into the complexities of grammar.
Progress is further helped by the fact that Romanian and English historically derive many words from a common Latin source and they both employ an expanding modern vocabulary of terms many of which have their origin in contemporary English: Acceptaţi carţi de credit? – ‘Do you take credit cards?’ (Buying things. General phrases) is a good example of a useful phrase which illustrates well the cousinly relationship between the two languages, and so is Adresa mea de e-mail este... ‘My e-mail address is…’ (Conversation. Filler words and e-mail). However the overlap is not always so generous and the purpose of these notes is to help the interested Linguata user get a deeper understanding of how the Romanian language works, using Linguata phrases to illustrate various points. Linguata users will find it much easier to remember and recognize phrases and words if they know what the individual elements mean, and this process will also help them make some modest inroads into the written language.
NOUNS and ADJECTIVES Part One
Nouns are the names of things, ideas and people, and adjectives tell you something about the nouns to which they belong. The more nouns and adjectives you know the more sense you can make of a foreign language, even if you don’t know the words in between and haven’t learnt much grammar. The meaning of many verbs can often be guessed from their resemblance to some noun or adjective, and vice versa:
glumă (joke)– glumeţ (funny, witty)– glumeşţi (‘You’re joking’) in Conversation. Small talk.
nume (name) - Numele meu este … (‘My name is…’) - Cum te numeşti? (‘What is your name?’ from numi, ‘to name’) in A first few words. 3.
Points to notice about Romanian nouns and adjectives:
They have 3 genders, masculine, feminine and neuter, with the adjectives agreeing with their nouns, which they usually (not always) come after.
They have case endings and plural forms.
Definite and indefinite articles (‘the’ and ‘a’) give you useful information about gender, and it is best to learn noun and indefinite article together.
Genders
Nouns which end in a consonant in the singular will usually be masculine or neuter, e.g. soţ (husband) and copil (child) are masculine, telefon and hotel are neuter.
However –u –e and –i can also be masculine or neuter endings, e.g. fiu (son) and lapte (milk) are masculine, timbru (stamp) and nume are neuter.
Feminine nouns end in a vowel: -a –ă –e and –ea: e.g. fiica (daughter), stradă (street), soţie (wife) and cafea (coffee).
Nouns that refer to male or female beings will be masculine or feminine e.g. soţ and soţie, and fiu and fiica above.
Case Endings and Plural Forms (Number)
In practice there are two cases which vary according to the gender and number of the noun.
Dictionaries give nouns in their nominative/accusative singular form, i.e. how they appear as the subject or object of a sentence. Nouns also have a genitive/dative form which indicates possession or some kind of indirect relationship; this, like the plural, varies according to whether the noun is definite or indefinite (see separate article).
