Learn how to talk about your ethnicity in Romanian using the verb meaning "to be"
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| Basic Bootcamp Season 1, Lesson 2 - Basic Romanian Phrases with the Verb "to be" |
| INTRODUCTION |
| Eric: Hi everyone, I’m Eric, and welcome back to Basic Bootcamp, Lesson 2 - Basic Romanian Phrases with the Verb "to be" |
| Mihai: Salut! I'm Mihai, and thanks again for being here with us for this Basic Bootcamp lesson. |
| Eric: In this lesson, you will learn how to introduce yourself and use the verb to be |
| Mihai: Which is A fi |
| Eric: ...in basic simple phrases. |
| Mihai: This conversation takes place in a classroom in Romania. |
| Eric: It’s between Julie and Paul. |
| Mihai: The speakers will be using informal language. |
| Eric: Let's listen to the conversation. |
| DIALOGUE |
| Julie: Bună, sunt Julie. Sunt franţuzoaică. |
| Paul: Bună, sunt Paul. Sunt american. |
| Eric: Let’s listen to the conversation one time slowly. |
| Julie: Bună, sunt Julie. Sunt franţuzoaică. |
| Paul: Bună, sunt Paul. Sunt american. |
| Eric: Now with the English translation. |
| Julie: Bună, sunt Julie. Sunt franţuzoaică. |
| Julie: Hello, I am Julie. I am French. |
| Paul: Bună, sunt Paul. Sunt american. |
| Paul: Hello, I am Paul. I am American. |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| Eric: Mihai, which nationalities do you think are interested in learning Romanian? |
| Mihai: It really varies. I'd say that obviously countries bordering Romania tend to learn Romanian. And I am referring more to the Romanian communities from Bulgaria, Serbia, Ukraine, Hungary, Israel, and Italy. |
| Eric: It's interesting to see the variety of people who learn Romanian. |
| Mihai: Yes, it's quite a spread-out community. From Asia to Alaska...I once met a person from Mauritius who spoke Romanian! |
| Eric: Really? |
| Mihai: Yes, he graduated his studies in Romania, then he went back to Mauritius, and from time to time he and his wife visit Romania. |
| Eric: Wow! So, Julie from our dialogue is French. |
| Mihai: Yes, she is franţuzoaică. |
| Eric: And Paul "is American,” |
| Mihai: Este american. |
| Now what you need to know is that in Romanian, nationalities have genders. |
| Eric: Yes, depending on if you're a man or a woman, it sometimes changes the end of the word. |
| Mihai: For example, let's take "American." If Eric says "I am American," it will be… |
| Eric: Sunt american. |
| Mihai: But if a girl says "I am American," it will be sunt americancă. |
| Eric: Did you hear that the end of the word was modified because it was feminine? |
| Mihai: That's because the feminine form of “American” takes -că at the end, so the last syllable sounds different. The masculine form usually takes an -n at the end and the feminine forms always have ă at the end. |
| Eric: What about franţuzoaică? Does the female form also take a -ca at the end? |
| Mihai: No, it’s a little bit different…The masculine form is francez and the feminine form is franţuzoaică. As you might notice, almost the entire word has changed. |
| Eric: Can you explain to us why? |
| Mihai: Of course. I’ll explain the easy way. The old Romanian way of saying “French man” is franţuz. By adding -oaică at the end, we have franţuzoaică. |
| Eric: So the feminine form remained the same over time. |
| Mihai: Yes. Well, we could also say franceză, but this word is more used for describing something as being French. For example, “French language,” in Romanian is limba franceză. |
| Eric: You said many Romanians study French as well. |
| Mihai: Yes, quite a lot of them. So a Romanian man would say sunt român, and a woman would say sunt româncă. Again, a -că at the end usually indicates a feminine word. |
| Eric: There are exceptions as we already mentioned, but don't worry about them just yet. |
| Mihai: Okay, why don't we take a closer look at these nationalities in the vocabulary section? |
| VOCAB LIST |
| Eric: Okay, let's take a look at the vocabulary for this lesson. First we have. |
| Mihai: sunt [natural native speed] |
| Eric: I am |
| Mihai: sunt [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Mihai: sunt [natural native speed] |
| Eric: Next we have.. |
| Mihai: franţuzoaică[natural native speed] |
| Eric: French |
| Mihai: franţuzoaică [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Mihai: franţuzoaică [natural native speed] |
| Eric: And last.. |
| Mihai: american [natural native speed] |
| Eric: American |
| Mihai: american [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Mihai: american [natural native speed] |
| KEY VOCAB AND PHRASES |
| Eric: Let's have a closer look at the usage of some of the words and phrases from this lesson. |
| Mihai: In Romanian, there are no actual rules that can make you guess the word for a nationality. |
| Eric: Even if I know the name of the country in Romanian? |
| Mihai: Yes, even if you know the name of the country. I mean, it's more or less logical, but there's no solid rule. |
| Eric: But right now we're making it sound like it's super difficult when it's actually not that hard. |
| Mihai: No. I guess the best way to find out what the nationality is, when you have the name of the country, would be to look it up! |
| Eric: You'll get there eventually. In this lesson, we saw two different ways of saying a nationality in Romanian. |
| Mihai: Yes, we saw american/americancă. |
| Eric: It ends with the letter -n for the masculine and -ca for the feminine |
| Mihai: Then we saw franţuzoaică. It ends with an -oaica and the masculine form is francez. |
| Eric: Hmm, that's a lot to remember, and we haven't even started the grammar part... |
| Mihai: The grammar is really easy here, don’t worry! |
Lesson focus |
|---|
| Eric: So, if you've listened to our first Bootcamp lesson, you already know about sunt, meaning "I am." Let's look at it in closer detail. |
| Mihai: Yes, "I am" or eu sunt is the conjugated form of the verb "to be", a fi. Last time, we saw that in order to say "I am Mihai," it was sunt Mihai. |
| Eric: Well, you can use it to say anything about yourself! For example, "I am American" |
| Mihai: That would be sunt American for a male or sunt americancă for a female. |
| Eric: Easy! |
| Mihai: Yes, remember that Eu, meaning "I," is used only for emphasis. So usually you simply say sunt american, which literally means "am American," rather than "I am American." The listener understands who you are talking about from the context. It really is easy! |
| Eric: Can you give me an example? |
| Mihai: Yes. If you would want to emphasize that you are French, you can add "I," eu. So we get Eu sunt franţuzoaică. |
| Eric: Oh, I see, so that sounds a little exaggerated? |
| Mihai: Yes, you'd be better off with a simple sunt franţuzoaică. |
| Eric: Okay, now we're going to talk about the word order in Romanian sentences. |
| Mihai: A Romanian simple phrase is formed by a subject, a predicate, and a compliment. |
| Eric: We must know that in Romanian grammar, a predicate can be nominal or verbal. |
| Mihai: A nominal predicate is formed by copulative verb plus a predicative noun and a verbal predicate is formed by a verb. Predicative nouns are a group of words that form together with a verb to make the predicate. |
| Eric: Why is it important to know this, Mihai? |
| Mihai: The verb a fi, which we have talked about before, can form both types of predicates, so in order to make simple phrases with the verb a fi, we must know the grammatical form of Romanian phrases. |
| Eric: Alright, so let’s give examples of simple phrases with the verb “to be” in Romanian. |
| Mihai: For example, Eu sunt franţuzoaică |
| Eric: Meaning “I am French” |
| Mihai: Here, the subject is Eu and the nominal predicate is sunt franţuzoaică. The next example is Eu sunt american |
| Eric: Meaning “I am American.” |
| Mihai: The subject is Eu and the nominal predicate is sunt american. |
| Eric: That is easy! |
| Mihai: When the verb a fi has the meaning of “to exist” , “to situate oneself”, “to locate oneself”, “to live”, “to happen”, or “to go”, it forms a predicate by itself. |
| Eric: That sounds a little bit complicated. Do you have an example? |
| Mihai: For example, Sunt la nord. |
| Eric: “I am in the north” |
| Mihai: If we rephrase this, we can say “I am situated in the north”. |
| Eric: Oh, I understand now. It’s not that difficult after all. What about simple phrases without the verb “to be”? Do all the Romanian verbs form the two types of predicates? |
| Mihai: No. Most of the verbs form verbal predicates only. In this case, the simple phrases will have the following structure - Subject + predicate + complement. |
| Eric: For example? |
| Mihai: Eu mănânc un măr. - Eu is the subject, mănânc is the verbal predicate, and un măr is the complement, also called the object. |
| Eric: That's easy I think. And it means “I am eating an apple.” |
| Mihai: Okay, it's time to wrap up... |
| Eric: Why don't we wrap by you telling us that you're Romanian? |
| Mihai: That’s Sunt român. It probably won't be used by you guys... |
| Eric: But you’ll probably hear it a lot in Romania! |
Outro |
| Eric: That just about does it for this lesson. |
| Eric: Premium members, use the review track to perfect your pronunciation. |
| Mihai: Available at the website, |
| Eric: and through iTunes via the premium feed, |
| Mihai: the Review Track gives you vocabulary and phrases followed by a short pause so you can repeat the words aloud. |
| Eric: It's the best way to get good at speaking Romanian fast! |
| Eric: Okay. |
| Eric: Thanks for listening, everyone, and we’ll see you next time. |
| Mihai: Bye! La revedere! |
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