Are you having a bad day in Bucharest? Crabby in Cluj? Testy in Timișoara?
You might want to take a deep breath and let it out.
Or not.
Because sometimes it’s really necessary to put your anger into words and tell others how you really feel.
Or suppose somebody’s harassing you. You don’t want to give them any kind of leeway—you want them gone, and pronto.
So now is the perfect time for you to review (or learn for the first time) how to express your anger in Romanian with some angry words and phrases you can use.
We’re not going to get too explicit here. Learning some mild insults, sentence patterns about anger, and maybe some more serious insults is good enough. Anything you want to express with these phrases is going to come across crystal-clear, guaranteed.
And in this article, in particular, you’ll get to begin exploring the very rich world of Romanian idioms and creative language. Trust us, there’s a whole universe out there!
Table of Contents
- Discussing Your Angry Feelings
- Get Out of My Face
- Don’t Look for Trouble
- Shut Your Trap
- Look What You’ve Done
- Let it All Go
- Let’s Take This Outside
- Say You’re Sorry
- Conclusion
1. Discussing Your Angry Feelings
Let’s begin by talking about emotions. Romanians are quite open and forthright about their emotions, finding it easy to express anger, happiness, and fear. Here are a few perfect phrases for letting someone know you’re angry in Romanian:
- Sunt foarte nervos.
I feel really angry. - Sunt atât de nervos pe tine!
I’m so angry at you! - Sunt supărat.
I’m upset. - Acest lucru este atât de frustrant.
This is so frustrating.
You may or may not already know that Romanian is an extremely rich language. We mentioned above that there are some great idioms out there, and here are two fantastic examples.
- Îmi sare muștarul!
My mustard is gonna jump off! (from annoyance)
There’s pretty much no explanation for this one, except that it certainly means you’re very annoyed with the world!
- Mă freci la icre!
That really rubs my caviar!
“Caviar” is a loose translation; really, we’re talking about fish eggs in general. Imagine that you’re about to dig into a tasty bowl of caviar (a very typical feature at Romanian dinners, by the way), and then somebody puts their bare hand in and rubs it all around.
That would be awful! And what you’re feeling now, imagining such an injustice, is the feeling evoked by this idiom in Romanian.
2. Get Out of My Face
Sometimes politely saying “no” or turning away isn’t enough to get somebody to stop bothering you. If you’ve got an annoying co-worker or you’re being harassed on the street, there are a couple of great things you can say to send a message.
First, another classic Romanian phrase.
- Ura și la gara!
Hurray! To the train station!
What’s the deal with this non-sequitur? It shows that you don’t care at all, like “Whoopee, now let’s get going.” It’s very important to say it in a sarcastic tone of voice!
- Mă scoți din pepeni.
You’re taking me out of my watermelons.
And another! This is silly and idiomatic, but the meaning is clear to any Romanian: “You’re making me annoyed and you’d better stop it.” Imagine a watermelon on the vine suddenly very cross with the world when a farmer starts to pick it, and you’ve got some idea of the sentiment.
Of course, there are plenty of other phrases that are less funny, less idiomatic, but still good Romanian—and more importantly, communicate the message in a bitingly clear way.
- Nu vreau să te mai văd pe-aici.
I don’t want to see you here again. - Mi-e indiferent.
I don’t care.
You might think that this translates as “I am indifferent,” but look at the pronouns again. The literal translation is “It is to me all the same.”
- Termină!
That’s enough!
Termină literally means “End (it)!” This is great for situations where somebody is doing something small and annoying to you, or as we say in English, really “pushing your buttons,” with stupid, repetitive behavior.
- Nu vreau să vorbesc cu tine.
“I don’t want to talk to you.”
3. Don’t Look for Trouble
If you’re the physically imposing type, you may not have to ever use these phrases. These are for when your “back off” words didn’t quite have the desired effect. The rudeness is turned up here, and when spoken in a harsh tone, the other person is quite likely to understand with haste that they’re making the wrong life decisions.
- Mișcă-te.
Beat it.
Because of the reflexive verb here, this first phrase has a sense of “get yourself completely out of here.” Unfortunately, that sense can only come across in the crudest of ways in translation.
- Cu mine vorbești?
Are you talking to me? - Cine te crezi?
Who do you think you are?
4. Shut Your Trap
Have you been in an argument recently? If you have, you probably wanted to say things in your own defense, but the other party probably wasn’t having it.
What a terrible, frustrating feeling! You can turn that around on others, though, by simply telling them directly that you don’t want to hear a single thing they have to say.
- Vreau să nu mai vorbești.
I want you to stop talking.
Starting off here, we have what could be a polite request, but we all know that it probably won’t be. By saying this one in a commanding tone, you’re asserting your authority, and more importantly, your importance in the context of the situation.
- Dispari!
Get away!
This is actually the same root word as “to shoot,” and so it has the sense of “fly away from here.” That said, it’s actually considered one of the ruder ways to express this particular sentiment in Romanian.
Here a couple more ways to express your anger in Romanian:
- Lasă-mă în pace!
Leave me alone! - Taci!
Shut up!
You may recognize the Latin root here from taciturn. There’s only the barest of similarities here with what English speakers associate that root with. In Romanian, this is a short, terse order, and woe betide anyone who keeps talking afterward.
- Stai jos și taci.
Sit down and shut up.
5. Look What You’ve Done
Blaming people is always a sure-fire way to get them riled up, so you shouldn’t blame people for things you know they didn’t do unless you’re the one looking for trouble.
- Mă minți.
You’re lying to me.
Romanian society, in addition to a stronger tie with emotions, also has a lot of honor attached to it. If someone is caught lying, they’re normally not trusted for a while, even within their circle of friends. And if you call someone a liar, then—whether or not they were actually lying—they’re liable to get heated.
- Nu mă asculți.
You’re not listening to me. - Ești dus cu pluta.
You’ve gone on a raft.
6. Let it All Go
Insults and fighting are fun to think about, but nobody really wants things to go that direction. You can do your best here to calm everybody down with some soothing words.
When you’re de-escalating a situation, you should try to make people feel respected and listened to. This is huge with customers—maybe you’re working in a hotel or restaurant with Romanian guests and they’re upset over the service.
- În regulă, las-o mai moale.
Alright, take it easy. - Am greșit amândoi.
We made a mistake. - Înțeleg, dar trebuie să te calmezi.
I understand, but you’ve got to calm down.
Remember that telling somebody else to calm down, in most cases, has the opposite effect! You have to really lean into this one, and show them that there’s really no need to be upset.
- Hai să nu ne certăm.
Let’s not fight. - Ai dreptate, îmi pare rău.
You’re right, I’m sorry. - Hai să uităm totul, bine?
Let’s forget about it, okay?
7. Let’s Take This Outside
Diplomacy can only really go so far. Even people with the most saintlike patience have a breaking point where they just have to let out their feelings and lash out at the world.
You should, however, be careful. There’s such a huge number of YouTube videos and articles out there about cursing in other languages that it can seem really fun to go and do it yourself once you know how.
But there are few things more dangerous for your social standing. Imagine you’re trying to accept a foreign learner into your social circle but they always take jokes and insults too far. It’ll get very old very fast.
And you didn’t grow up hearing and feeling insults in Romanian! You don’t have that innate sense of what they really mean—so be very careful when using them, and even when joking around with them.
- Pe mă-ta!
Your mother!
This is an insult all around the world, even though it doesn’t really mean anything literally. The implications, though, are vast and serious. Romanian actually takes things to an entirely different plane of vulgarity and obscenity, particularly with regard to mothers. In the interest of decency, we’re not going to print the really bad stuff.
- Porcule!
You swine! - Du-te dracu’!
Go to hell! - Rahat ambulant!
You walking turd! - Țăranule!
Peasant!
The divide between city and country is felt rather strongly in Romania, and so to call somebody a peasant implies a great deal of backwardness and lack of education. Few people in Romania are pining for a quiet rural life, that’s for sure.
- Ești un laș.
You’re a coward.
A couple of sections ago, we mentioned that honesty is important in Romanian society. So is bravery, of course. Calling somebody a coward can never end well, as even people who don’t care much for older notions of “honor” are going to feel that sting.
8. Say You’re Sorry
After walking away from the situation, thinking about it for a while, and calming down, you might have a sinking feeling of dread.
What if you were in the wrong, after all?
You probably were a little bit too forceful with your words, and so the best thing to do here is to be the bigger person and apologize.
Note that this is slightly different than trying to de-escalate a situation because here the bad stuff has already happened. However, a lot of the sentiments are the same.
The basic way to say “I’m sorry” in Romanian is Îmi pare rău. Let’s assume, though, that your foul deeds included all of the awful insults just discussed above. That’s not very forgivable very quickly, and so you’d better up the ante a little bit with sincerity.
- Îmi pare foarte rău.
I’m very sorry.
Apologies only go so far, of course. Making promises is the next step, where you admit your own wrongs and explain why you’re going to do better in the future.
- Nu trebuia să spun asta.
I shouldn’t have said that. - Nu trebuia să țip la tine.
I shouldn’t have yelled at you. - Am greșit că am făcut asta.
I was wrong to do that. - Nu vreau să fac asta din nou.
I won’t do that again. - Am făcut o greșeală teribilă.
I made a terrible mistake.
Will anybody believe you after the terrible things you said? Maybe. Only time will tell.
9. Conclusion
Here we’ve seen just how many ways there are to start trouble with angry words in Romanian. Even more, we’ve seen that it can lead to scary situations and call for desperate apologies if you overdo it.
Why do that at all?
With RomanianPod101, you can learn to do better. Our lessons teach you the words you really need, in the way that makes the most sense to you.
From articles like this one to our video series and flagship podcast, you’ll get to know the subtle cues in Romanian culture so that you can use language like this on purpose, not by accident.
All of those articles about making cultural faux pas and having natives be offended simply assume that you don’t know the language. By learning to speak Romanian well, you’ll avoid ever causing any trouble with your words.
So really, there’s nothing to be angry about. Try out RomanianPod101 and see what it can bring to you!
What’s your favorite Romanian angry phrase from this article? What are the most common angry phrases in your native language? We look forward to hearing from you in the comments below!
