O amintire vagă, folclorizată a împărătesei Maria Terezia se păstrează până azi in limba vorbită (și) in părțile crișene ale Aradului în câteva expresii si contexte fixe, ironice .Le redau mai jos. Gândești că ești mareatrezie. Iacăt-o si pă mareatrezie. Vine si mareatrezie. Da’ ce te-ai țifroșit/nelcoșit/feștit așe, că doară nu ești mareatrezie ? Numa’ mareatrezie nu-i în casă/pod/pe masă ( adică locul e năpădit de tot felul de obiecte).

Bănuiesc că exemple similare există in tot Ardealul , poate singurul element original in exemplele date de mine e aglutinarea celor două nume. Le-am scris fără majusculă deoarece bunicii nu păreau că știu exact despre cine este vorba când foloseau cuvântul “mareatrezie” deși eram atunci prea mic pentru a-i descoase mai bine.

Salut!

Sorry if this sort of question has been asked before, but does anyone have a recommendation for obtaining a Romanian language tutor? I've been meaning to learn for a long time as my partner is Romanian and I'd love to surprise her one day.

I've looked at places like Language Trainers UK and they quote around £45 per hour, which is quite steep for me. I was hoping I'd spend about 50-75% of that and I'd rather pay it directly the tutor than this site which takes a hefty fee. Especially if they're based in Romania as I know the money goes much further.

Any thoughts or suggestions would be very much appreciated.

Mulțumesc

Someone suggested I also ask for some answers here! I was looking for something either romantic or friendly

Watching, reading, and listening is what motivates me to learn new words but Romanian media just isn't common place in middle of nowhere rural America. I have searched and found music I enjoy so that being said, what are shows, movies, and books that you like?

I remember finding one some time ago but I couldn't find it anymore. It was very handy, you just put down "bărbat" and it gave you "un bărbat" and all the plural and other stuff.

-ilă occurs at the end of proper names and nicknames, often itself derived from a proper name or a common noun/an adjective.

Proper name examples include Dănilă (from Dan, probably) and Petrilă (from Petre/Petru). Also nicknames like Fomilă (from foame, "hunger") or Iepurilă (from iepure, "rabbit", a nickname given, for example, to a stuffed rabbit toy, as discussed in an older post on this sub).

That older post I just mentioned asked about the meaning of -ilă. However, what I am interested about is its etymology rather than its meaning.

Does anyone have sources or even just proposed origins of this suffix? Someone on Quora said it is a substratum (pre-Latin) element, but I haven't seen any proof of this.

Thoughts?

Hello! I live in Romania for around 2 years already and I wanted to learn Romanian better mostly for myself, my friends and fiance. Does any of you have any recomendations how to do it? Some videos or Youtube channels I can watch to learn Romanian? (I only know Polish and English languages so it would be the best if those videos would be in this language so I could understand Romanian words and their meanings and etc). Except videos it can be anything else. I can't really take any courses in this language because I don't really have money for that and time because I'm studying for my online school and this is my last high school year so I didn't want to change my online high school, I wanted to finish it. I would be grateful for some tips and recomendations because I was planning to learn Romanian at least on communicative level (like B1-B2 but I know that it would take a lot of time so I wanted to start as fast as possible and surprise my fiance).

Thank you in advance.

Short version: looking for a song and only have the following info

1. Appears to be a children's song
2. When sung to her, the singer would pinch her hand
3. The only words she remembers sounded like "PEENTsee gaia."

More context:

• My wife's family are Romanian.
• Her grandparents came from there
• Her grandfather would call her grandmother a dirty gypsy so she was potentially Romani?

Thank you for whatever assistance you can render.

Pe scurt , nu l-am găsit până acum înregistrat in dictionarele românești obișnuite , însă e un adverb des folosit in jud. Arad și Bihor, până spre Sătmar, cel puțin. Înseamnă “invers”, “îndrăpt”. Etimologia nu mi-e clară, dar poate că uzajul in juxtapozitie cu “așe” ( e folosit și independent de “așe”) să ofere p indicație : “Nu fă așe, fă șeș!” “Ai pus zobonu pe tine șeș.” Vocala e un “e” deschis ca in Crișana și N-V Ardealului, Maramureș etc. Ocazional se apropie de “ă” in pronunție .

Hello! Im trying to learn romanian for the second time. Heres my problem: ive been looking for this specific website i used to learn before. I remember it having some texts (one of them being about a school, and another a restaurant) and it had exercices after that text. I don't remember much more since this was over 2y ago, but i would like to return the romanian learning journey.

Hey folks,
I’ve got a text in Romanian that I’d like to get a second opinion on. If anyone has a moment to look it over and offer some corrections or suggestions, I’d really appreciate it! Thanks a lot! 🙏

Salut!

A thing I noticed trying to learn Romanian by watching media (movies, TV, internet) is that there are very few examples of people speaking naturally, mixing in slang, swearing etc into conversation, they always feel rehearsed and don't sound like you would hear people speak in a pub, for example.

Other confusing aspects are regional accents/variations and their "correctness". As in why is the Transylvanian accent deemed as correct - or acceptable? - (such as pronouncing "bine" as [binje]) while accents from the south, such as reading "pe" as [pə] deemed incorrect?

Bună tuturor.

Im very confused about this/these that/those

From the website romania-insider I have learned that you dont use the definite article when using a demonstrative. (Această carte)

Now im watching a video of a Romanian native and she talks about the definition article and uses a demonstrative.

Acest Băiatul/ băiatul acesta Această fată/ fata aceasta

So my question is do you use the definite article or not and do you place the demonstrative in front or after the noun?

And I dont get it why its acel before a noun and acela after a noun??? Its acela singular this for masculine nouns.

The same with această and aceasta it is aceasta not with an ă.

Im so confused and cant find answers.

Yes, I know it's hard...

Applying for citizenship through my grandfather and it looks like I'll have to get the B1 language requirement unless I somehow find a way around it (feel free to DM me on that if you have suggestions!)

I am wondering what people think the fastest path to B1 would be - I am starting from zero and know English and A2 French. If I had to I could go and stay in Bucharest for period of time. What schools, apps or other things would people do? I am willing to put some time into it.

And does anyone know what the options are for getting a B1 certificate that's acceptable to Romanian authorities, and what the easiest of those paths might be?

Thanks so much!

I built zidezi.app to help me stay consistent with learning a new language. It’s like "Wordle" but for language learning, with daily articles adapted to the user's level. The app uses ChatGPT to generate fresh articles daily, and users can click on any unfamiliar word for an instant explanation. My goal was to keep it smooth and minimal — no clutter, just learning by discovery.

Romanian is one of the languages on the app, adapted to three levels: beginner, intermediate, and advanced. All levels get the same topic, but the vocabulary and the grammar scale to match. I started with intermediate Spanish translated to Romanian but moved to advanced over a few weeks as I progressed.

I’m thinking of adding features like an audio mode, more detailed grammar explanations (like verb conjugations and noun declensions), and spaced repetition to reinforce vocabulary you click on. The long term plan is to introduce ways to practice not only reading, but also listening and speaking. As it stands, you need a basic understanding of the language to use the app, so definitely not something for complete beginners. I'd love to hear any feedback or ideas!

Sorry if this is a silly question - I was just curious if there was a significant difference between pisică and mâță. Are they basically synonymous, or is there a difference in connotation or some kind of regional difference?

Hello guys, can you give me some nice words in romanian like"you look beautiful today" or "I love you" and that stuff? Thanks :)

I am visiting Romania for a month, I don't know the language.

I have heard 'Scuza' used when someone bumped into me. I know it means 'sorry'.

But, can it also be used to get somebody's attention? So, for example if I want to ask the shop assistant to find something, can I say 'scuza' to get their attention? Much like saying , ' excuse me'?

Would that sound strange?

bună :) din păcate, m-am fost născut și crescut în sua; și iar din păcate părinții mei nu prea mă învățat să vorbesc românește fluent. în casa mea tot timpul am vorbit “romanglish” 🤦🏼‍♂️ m-am hotărât recent să învăț singur cum să vorbesc fluent română pentru a mă conecta cu rădăcinile și cultura mea. vreau să găsesc câteva prietenii cu care pot să practic (sau practicum) să vorbesc românește. dacă asta te interesează, trimitem mesaj te rog. mulțumesc frumos și noapte bună (sau dimineața în românia) !! 😁

Hello! I have been learning Romanian by myself, and I am struggling with learning all of the verbs by heart. So far, I have learned around 10-15 verbs by heart (in the present).

Anyone has advice on how to go about learning all the different conjugations? Is it really by heart for every single verb or can some patterns help?

Hello, I learned romanian from my parents as an american. My dad tells me I speak english with romanian words, so I want to know if there's any way I could learn better grammar? I'm conversational, not completely fluent. I wanted to try Duolingo but had the worst experience ever, then found out they were using AI now, so now I'm asking y'all :)

Sincer sa fiu n'am stat niciodată să "investighez" treaba asta dar de unde pana unde cele doua cuvinte au ajuns sa aiba sens opus?

Sa inteleg ca etimologia e complet diferita sau e vreo dubioșenie ca plus și plus din franceză?

I am posting as a separate document online (because it is too big for reddit text/reply). It will be continually updated / improved.

See and download it HERE, on Dropbox. (Initially I had posted on onedrive /msoffice online HERE - but that is now outdated. I have changed to Dropbox because I prefer to edit the document with a local text editor).

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The idea was to make a list of common, similar or related words that could therefore be recognizable to an English speaker. It works like this: English has many words with the same roots as Romanian which can at least partly be recognized and may look familiar. Most of these roots are Latin, and have entered English as Franco-Norman words (post 1066 Norman conquest) or have been imported later from French or directly from Latin. A few may reflect an older Indo-European connection – for example, an English word may have a Germanic or even Celtic root, itself related to a Latin, Slavic or other root which has descendants in Romanian (these are just a few and I will mention them because they are interesting and their etymology may have a mnemonic significance to those interested, even if they do not look as similar as the rest).

I will not focus on the pairs of words that are just recorded as very common internationally – of French, Latin, Greek or other origin (interior, exterior, constitution, government, liberty, democracy, geometry, motorcycle, motor, technology, alphabet, finance, etc) – only relatively recently imported in both languages, or just from English into Romanian (and into many other languages: computer, internet, etc). –

But I will focus very much on words that, although present in Romanian as relatively recent borrowings, and looking very similar to the English equivalents, have an older Romanian equivalent, a doublet. For example, ”recent” or ”rapid” are present in both Romanian and English with the same meaning, but Romanian has the old words ”rece” (”fresh, cold”) and ”repede” (”fast”); or, beside the common borrowing legislation/legislate=legislație/legislator, Romanian has the old forms ”lege/legiui/legiuitor”.

It may also prove easy to remember the word ”fluture”=butterfly along with the verb ”a flutura” (”to flutter”) although we may lack an etymological connection.

I haven’t added the etymology, the description and explanation of common root in most cases, but those are easily accessible on Wiktionary. Some explanations in Romanian haven't been translated into English. Most Romanian words are not followed closely by an English translation.

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Feel free to ask for more details and to suggest corrections, but not before checking the document linked above and the etymological sources like en.wiktionary.org for the words that are not joined by such info.

But feel especially welcome to suggest new words!

I will continually update this Dropbox file, and even add here from time to time the last findings!

For example:

https://preview.redd.it/tay1m5ejlo0e1.png?width=1407&format=png&auto=webp&s=bf6073ad0a02c722c255eb185128b302afec805f

https://preview.redd.it/wkvzi2jclo0e1.png?width=1410&format=png&auto=webp&s=2d4c6a2d8d16351e62295b6a58acfa6689e35fc7

Hello! I’m writing a story with a character that’s from Romania. There’s a scene where she calls out to the main character in Romanian and calls him “Plain boy!” As in plain-looking. I really want to be accurate about this. Thank you so much!

I keep having trouble with my pronounciation especially with accents. I feel like they have no logic. Is there any general rule to placing accents or is there really no logic?

Any kinds of slang, also stuff I will encounter online :)

I'd also appreciate texting abbreviations, as I sometimes come across them :))