Learn how to make questions and question tags in Romanian
Now Playing: Lesson Audio
Get a breakdown of the dialogue and translations instantly with the Premium line-by-line Audio. Sign up for your Free Lifetime Account Now and get 7 Days of Premium Access including this feature.
Get this lesson’s key vocab, their translations and pronunciations. Sign up for your Free Lifetime Account Now and get 7 Days of Premium Access including this feature.
Unlock Lesson Notes and Transcripts for every single lesson. Sign Up for a Free Lifetime Account and Get 7 Days of Premium Access.
Intro |
|---|
| Antoni: How are questions made in Romanian? |
| Anna: And what about question tags? |
| Antoni: At RomanianPod101.com, we hear these questions often. Imagine the following situation: Ioana Iordache is asking her neighbor, Mark Lee, about whether or not his family will join their party. Mark wants to join but seeks confirmation from his wife: |
| "Karen, we are going, aren't we?" |
| Mark Lee: Karen, mergem, nu-i așa? |
| Dialogue |
| Ioana Iordache: Veniți la petrecerea noastră? |
| Mark Lee: Karen, mergem, nu-i așa? |
| Antoni: Once more with the English translation. |
| Ioana Iordache: Veniți la petrecerea noastră? |
| Antoni: "Are you coming to our party?" |
| Mark Lee: Karen, mergem, nu-i așa? |
| Antoni: "Karen, we are going, aren't we?" |
Lesson focus |
| Antoni: In this lesson, you will be learning how to ask questions in Romanian. You will also be learning how to use question tags. |
| The easiest question to learn is one that doesn't involve learning any new grammar at all. What this entails is simply using rising intonation at the end of a declarative sentence. The grammar does not change. Listen to this declarative sentence which means "You are at home:" |
| Anna: Tu ești acasă. |
| Antoni: And now listen to the same sentence, but phrased as the question: "Are you at home?" |
| Anna: Tu ești acasă? |
| Antoni: As you can hear, the grammar did not change at all. Anna only changed the pitch of her voice at the end of the sentence. Let's try another one. We'll start with the sentence, |
| Anna: Voi aveţi timp, |
| Antoni: which means, "You have time." And now, let's change it into a question: |
| Anna: Voi aveţi timp? |
| Antoni: It now means "Do you have time?" So easy. In case you were wondering, the word Anna used for "you" was in the plural form. |
| Another way to ask questions in Romanian is to put the verb first in the sentence. For instance, if we take the same declarative sentence we used earlier |
| Anna: Tu ești acasă. |
| Antoni: and then we put the verb at the beginning, we form a question that means "Are you at home?": |
| Anna: Eşti tu acasă? |
| Antoni: Of course, if you are writing the question down, then you need a question mark at the end of the sentence too. Let's try the same thing with the other sentence we used previously. We'll start with the declarative sentence, "You have time," or |
| Anna: Voi aveţi timp. |
| Antoni: As you can hear, the verb is the second word in this sentence. Now, let's put it at the front and use rising intonation at the end of the sentence to form the question: |
| Anna: Aveţi voi timp? |
| Antoni: As I'm sure you will have guessed, this means, "Do you have time?" |
| So simple. It really is a lot easier to form questions this way than it is in English where you have to add verbs like "do," "does," "is," or "are" to the beginning of the sentence. In Romanian, all you have to do is put the verb at the beginning. |
| If you've been good about studying your Romanian, you are familiar, by now, with the concept of the subject being dropped from a sentence. One can do this in Romanian because the subject can be implied simply by conjugating the verb in a certain way. If you know how to conjugate verbs according to person, it's just as easy to form questions as the other ways we've shown you! Sticking with the two sentences we've been using so far, let's use the first one again, but this time we will drop the subject. This is how it sounds: |
| Anna: Eşti acasă? |
| Antoni: It doesn't get simpler than that. We know that the pronoun of the sentence is "you" even though we didn't hear it because the verb conjugation implies it. The verb |
| Anna: esti |
| Antoni: can only ever be used in a sentence where the addressee is the singular "you." Now, let's try the same thing with our second sentence: |
| Anna: Aveţi timp? |
| Antoni: Again, as you can hear, the pronoun was dropped because it was not necessary. Just to give you a more comprehensive idea of how it works, let's use a verb that implies a different pronoun. In this case, we'll take a question meaning, "Does he drink wine?" or |
| Anna: Bea el vin? |
| Antoni: and then we will drop the pronoun, like this: |
| Anna: Bea vin? |
| Antoni: This should give you a good idea of how simple it is to form questions without a subject pronoun. |
| [Recall 1] |
| Knowing what you now know about asking questions in Romanian, let's look at the way that Ioana asked "Are you coming to our party?" in the dialogue. She asked: |
| Anna as Ioana Iordache: Veniți la petrecerea noastră? |
| Antoni: As you can hear, she used two of the methods we've discussed for forming questions. She started with the verb |
| Anna: veniti |
| Antoni: and she didn't have to use the subject pronoun because it was implied by the verb. |
| [Recall 2] |
| In his reply to this question, Mark used a question tag. He asked, "Karen, we are going, aren't we?" and the question tag was: ."..aren't we?" A question tag is a word or a short phrase that is placed at the end of a declarative sentence in order to change it into a question. Let's listen again to what Mark said, in Romanian, and try to identify the question tag: |
| Anna as Mark Lee: Karen, mergem, nu-i așa? |
| Antoni: If you identified the words |
| Anna: nu-i așa |
| Antoni: as the question tag, you were correct. This tag generally translates to "isn't it" and it is the only question tag that is used in Romanian. We'll listen to one or two more examples after a brief summary of what we have learned so far in this lesson. |
| [Summary] |
| Antoni: In this lesson, thus far, you have learned that it is quite easy to form questions in Romanian. Two of the methods are very easy in that you can simply use a declarative sentence with a small alteration to the ending. You can either raise the intonation of the sentence at the end or you can add a tag question. Other ways involve either moving the verb to the beginning of the sentence or dropping the subject. Of course, you can also do both. |
| Let's now hear a few more examples of tag questions. Listen carefully for the rising intonation on the last word of the sentence just preceding the question tag. In this first example, someone is asking, "You are at home, aren't you?" |
| Anna: Tu eşti acasă, nu-i așa? |
| Antoni: And here someone is asking, "He drinks wine, doesn't he?" |
| Anna: El bea vin, nu-i așa? |
| Antoni: Did you notice that the question tags were different for each of the English sentences, but the same in the Romanian sentences? This is because, as we mentioned before, there is only one question tag in Romanian, which certainly makes learning Romanian question tags easy! |
| Expansion/Contrast (Optional) |
| Antoni: Another simple way to ask a question in Romanian is to use one of the interrogative words. In English, these are often referred to as the "W-H" words. This is because all of them, except for "how" start with a "W-H." When listening to the following examples, please take note of the intonation. It might seem a little strange to people who are not familiar with Romanian because the intonation is high at the beginning of the sentence and gets lower gradually. Let's start by learning how to ask "who" in Romanian. This question means "Who is he?": |
| Anna: Cine este el? |
| Antoni: The question word, in this case, was |
| Anna: cine |
| Antoni: and, as you could hear, it was placed at the very beginning of the sentence. This is the format you should follow with all the interrogative words. The next example involves the use of the Romanian word for "what," or |
| Anna: ce. |
| Antoni: We'll use it in a sentence which means, "What do you want?" Note, once again, how the subject is dropped: |
| Anna: Ce vrei? |
| Antoni: That is the kind of question that irritable teenagers are prone to ask of their parents and here is a sentence that teenagers often hear from parents: |
| Anna: Unde mergi? |
| Antoni: It means, "Where are you going?" and the question word was |
| Anna: unde |
| Antoni: which means "where," of course. Questions about time come up in many situations, so learning how to ask "when" or |
| Anna: când |
| Antoni: will serve you well. If, for instance, you want to ask someone when they are coming, you can say: |
| Anna: Când vii? |
| Antoni: The translation of this is "When are you coming?" Another question that you are likely to hear or ask quite often is |
| Anna: Cum preferaţi cafeaua? |
| Antoni: This sentence means, "How do you like your coffee?" The question word was |
| Anna: cum |
| Antoni: which, as you will have guessed, means "how." This next question word is one that some people have been known to have difficulty with: |
| Anna: care |
| Antoni: It means "which" and some people struggle with the difference between this and the word for "what" or |
| Anna: ce |
| Antoni: A simple way to remember the difference is to keep in mind that, just as in English, the word for "which" is used when there is a choice to be made among two or more options. If, for instance, you want to know which among a group of cars belongs to your friend, you can ask "Which car is yours?" |
| Anna: Care e maşina ta? |
| Antoni: Finally, let's look at the interrogative word "why" in Romanian. We'll use an example of a question you will hopefully not be asking often—"Why are you crying?" In Romanian, it sounds like this: |
| Anna: De ce plângi? |
| Antoni: As with all the question words, this one was also placed at the beginning of the sentence, but take note that the question word "why" is actually composed of two words in Romanian: |
| Anna: de ce |
| Antoni: You now know many ways to ask questions in Romanian. After a quick review of the dialogue, we'll have a look at some specific questions that you might find useful if you are traveling to Romania or meeting a Romanian person. |
| Practice Section |
| Antoni: Let's review. Respond to the prompts by speaking aloud. Then, repeat after Anna, focusing on pronunciation. |
| Do you remember how Ioana Iordache asks "Are you coming to our party?" |
| [Beep. Pause 5 seconds.] |
| Anna as Ioana Iordache: Veniți la petrecerea noastră? |
| Antoni: Listen again and repeat. |
| Anna as Ioana Iordache: Veniți la petrecerea noastră? |
| [Beep. Pause 5 seconds.] |
| Anna as Ioana Iordache: Veniți la petrecerea noastră? |
| Antoni: And do you remember how Mark Lee says "Karen, we are going, aren't we?" |
| [Beep. Pause 5 seconds.] |
| Anna as Mark Lee: Karen, mergem, nu-i așa? |
| Antoni: Listen again and repeat. |
| Anna as Mark Lee: Karen, mergem, nu-i așa? |
| [Beep. Pause 5 seconds.] |
| Anna as Mark Lee: Karen, mergem, nu-i așa? |
| Cultural Insight/Expansion (Optional) |
| Antoni: One of the first questions you are likely to hear and ask, whether you are traveling in Romania or talking to a Romanian person elsewhere, is "What is your name?" or |
| Anna: Care este numele tău? |
| Antoni: This translates pretty closely to the English, but there is another way to ask this question which translates to: "What do you call yourself?" Have a listen: |
| Anna: Cum te cheamă? |
| Antoni: Don't worry about the different choices of words though. They both mean the same thing. |
| As a traveler, another question you are likely to hear often is |
| Anna: De unde ești? |
| Antoni: This means "Where are you from?" In case you are wondering what that little word at the beginning of the sentence means, let's quickly discuss it. It comes before a word we have already learned in this lesson, and that is |
| Anna: unde |
| Antoni: which means "where." The little word which precedes "where" is |
| Anna: de |
| Antoni: and it means "from," so the person asking the question is saying, "From where are you?" |
| If, while traveling, you experience difficulty communicating with someone in Romanian, you might want to ask them if they can speak English. In that case, the question you should use is |
| Anna: Vorbești engleză? |
| Antoni: Translated, this means, "Do you speak English?" It is a good example of simply using the grammatical format of a declarative sentence and adding rising intonation at the end of the sentence in order to change it into a question. |
| You have now learned several ways to ask questions in Romanian and this should make you feel a lot more confident when questions come up in a Romanian conversation. |
Outro |
| Antoni: Do you have any more questions? We're here to answer them! |
| Anna: La revedere. |
| Antoni: See you soon! |
| Credits: Anna (Romanian, Romania), Antoni (English, synthetic voice) |
Comments
Hide