Vocabulary (Review)

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Lesson Transcript

Bună tuturor! Sunt Raluca. Hi everybody! I’m Raluca. Welcome to RomanianPod101.com’s Româna în 3 minute. The fastest, easiest, and most fun way to learn Romanian.
In the last lesson, you learned how to ask "Who" questions in Romanian.
This time, we are going to ask questions using the question word "why" or de ce in Romanian.
Imagine your boss is giving you a call because you are not at work today... He will certainly ask you, ¿De ce nu ai venit la serviciu?
This means “Why didn’t you come to work?”
[slowly] ¿De ce nu ai venit la serviciu?
Let’s break down this question.
First we have De ce, which is the basic translation of "Why".
nu ai venit is the 2nd person singular of the verb a veni meaning “to come” in the present perfect negative form. It is equivalent to “you didn’t come.”
Finally, we have La serviciu which is "to work"
Altogether, once more ¿De ce nu ai venit la serviciu?
“Why didn’t you come to work?”
So in Romanian, De ce is the exact translation of "Why", which is used to ask the reason for something.
So for example, if your boss is asking you ¿De ce ai întârziat? That means "Why are you late?"
[slowly] ¿De ce ai întârziat?
And of course de ce can also be used not just to ask but also to answer just like in Nu știu de ce meaning “I don’t know why.”
Now it’s time for Raluca’s Insights.
A famous expression in Romania is ¿De ce nu? which means, like in English, "Why not?"
You can use it to accept a proposition if you agree but are not really sure if you want to do it. Or, if it was not planned in advance.
For example, if a friend asks you suddenly "How about we go to the movies tonight?"
You can answer ¿De ce nu? meaning "Why not?"
This lesson is the last lesson of this Absolute Beginner video series. But it’s hopefully not the last you learn about the Romanian language! To take your language ability to the next level, check out RomanianPod101.com, the fastest, easiest, and most fun way to learn Romanian.
Vă mulțumim că ați studiat cu noi.
Thanks for learning with us!
La revedere!

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