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Lesson Transcript

All About, Lesson 12 - Top Five Romanian Phrases for the Classroom
Eric: Hi everyone, and welcome back to RomanianPod101.com. This is All About Lesson 12 - Top Five Romanian Phrases for the Classroom. I’m Eric.
Raluca: Hey, salut! And I’m Raluca!
Eric: Are you ready Raluca? In this lesson, we’re going to learn the top five Romanian classroom phrases!
Raluca: Yep! When taking a Romanian class, there are some words and phrases that you’re probably very familiar with.
Eric: If you haven’t started your class yet, here is a list of the five most-used phrases you may say or hear during a Romanian lesson.
Raluca: Okay, so can we start the class?
Eric: Sure, let’s go!
Raluca: Să începem! Let’s start!
Eric: When the teacher is speaking, there will surely be some words or phrases that you miss. When you want to ask “Can you repeat that, please?” the right sentence to use is…
Raluca: Mă scuzaţi, puteţi repeta vă rog?
Eric: This sentence is in the polite form.
Raluca: Yes. It’s customary to use the polite pronoun Dumneavoastră with teachers and to conjugate the verbs in first person plural. In our phrase the pronoun is implied. Mă Scuzaţi is an expression to draw someone’s attention. It’s exactly like “excuse me!”
Eric: And it sounds very similar to Italian, too.
Raluca: Puteţi is the verb a putea, meaning “can,” in the first person plural conjugated in the present tense.
Eric Next we have “to repeat.”
Raluca: Which in Romanian is repeta , and finally vă rog is the Romanian expression for “please.”
Eric: Let’s say the whole phrase again.
Raluca Mă Scuzaţi, puteţi repeta vă rog? Good, now let’s move on to the Romanian classroom phrase numărul doi.
Eric: “Number two!” Phrase number two is said by the teacher and it is…
Raluca: Vă rog, mergeţi la pagina numărul unsprezece.
Eric: meaning “Please look at page number 11.” Page numbers also help a student in memorizing how to count in Romanian.
Raluca: In Romanian we use the verb a merge, “to walk,” instead of the verb “to look at,” a privi.
Eric: And since a class is usually made up of more than one person it’s plural.
Raluca: That’s why we are using the second plural person voi. At this point, the teacher will probably ask someone to read out loud by saying his or her name followed by the phrase poţi citi?
Eric: Meaning “Can you read?”
Raluca: Poţi is the present tense of the second singular person of a putea meaning “can”; and citi means “to read.”
Eric: Okay Raluca, let’s continue with Romanian Classroom phrase number three.
Raluca: When you’re looking for the meaning of a word, it’s customary to look it up in a dictionary without interrupting the lesson.
Eric: However, there are some expressions that you won’t find easily…
Raluca: That’s when it’s appropriate to say Mă Scuzaţi, cum se spune …[something].. în română?
Eric: Which means “Excuse-me, how do we say [something] in Romanian?”
Raluca: Cum stands for “how” in Romanian; and se spune...
Eric: ...is the translation for “we say.”
Raluca: Se spune is an impersonal form where the verb a spune is conjugated in the third singular person, as in el/ea spune meaning “he or she says.” Hey Eric, did you use these phrases in your Romanian class?
Eric: I used them a lot! But it’s phrase number four that I used the most!
Raluca: Oh, and which one is that?
Eric: “What does it mean?”
Raluca: That’s...ce înseamnă. In Romanian, the verb “to mean” is a însemna. Breaking this down, the phrase “what” is translated as ce.
Eric: Let’s see how the verb is conjugated.
Raluca: a însemna changes into înseamnă when conjugated in the present tense in the third person singular.
Eric: That’s why “what does it mean?” is...
Raluca: ce înseamnă? So Eric, we now have the last sentence of our class!
Eric: That’s right, phrase number 5.
Raluca: It’s Numărul cinci. At the end of a Romanian lesson, the teacher will probably ask the class aţi înţeles?
Eric: Which literally means “have you understood?” In English, it is more appropriate to use the simple tense in this case.
Raluca: But in Romanian it’s the past tense. That’s why ati inteles is the past tense of the verb a intelege meaning “to understand,” in the second person plural voi, the plural “you.” Another common sentence you are going to hear at the end of a Romanian class is Există întrebări?
Eric: This means “Any questions?”
Raluca: Există literally means “exist” and întrebări is the plural form of the feminine noun întrebare, “question.”
Eric: So listeners, “Any questions”?
Raluca: Există întrebări? If you have one, please leave us a comment at romanianpod101.com!
Eric: And be sure to use these phrases in your Romanian class! Thanks for listening, and we’ll see you next time.
Raluca: La revedere!

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