Learn some Romanian tongue twisers
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Intro |
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| Antoni: What are some Romanian tongue twisters? |
| Anna: And are many Romanian words hard to pronounce? |
| Antoni: At RomanianPod101.com, we hear these questions often. Imagine the following scenario: Sasha Lee is interested in Romanian tongue twisters. She asks her friend, Veronica Voicu, to tell her one: |
| "Can you tell me a tongue twister in Romanian?" |
| Sasha Lee: Poți să îmi spui o frântură de limbă în română? |
| Dialogue |
| Sasha Lee: Poți să îmi spui o frântură de limbă în română? |
| Veronica Voicu: Piatra crapă capra, capra crapă piatra. |
| Antoni: Once more with the English translation. |
| Sasha Lee: Poți să îmi spui o frântură de limbă în română? |
| Antoni: "Can you tell me a tongue twister in Romanian?" |
| Veronica Voicu: Piatra crapă capra, capra crapă piatra. |
| Antoni: "The stone breaks the goat, the goat breaks the stone." |
Lesson focus |
| Antoni: In the dialogue for this lesson, Sasha asks Veronica to share an example of a tongue twister with her. A tongue twister is a sentence or a phrase that contains a series of words that sound quite similar. This makes tongue twisters quite hard to say out loud. The tongue tends to get confused which is why these constructions are called tongue twisters. The tongue twister that Veronica shared with Sasha is a good example of how difficult it is to distinguish between the different words in some tongue twisters. Listen again: |
| Anna: Piatra crapă capra, capra crapă piatra. |
| Antoni: As you heard before, this means "The stone breaks the goat, the goat breaks the stone." This Romanian tongue twister is not easy to say, even for native speakers, and if you are not a native speaker, it is even more likely that you will end up with your tongue tied in knots. Still, trying to say tongue twisters is one of the more fun ways to learn how to pronounce words and work on your enunciation in any language. You can even turn it into a game where you take turns with a friend to see who can say it the fastest without making a mistake. If you don't have someone you can practice with, try timing yourself and see if you can say it faster and faster. While we can't help you with timing yourself, what we can do is provide you with a few tongue twisters to practice. Try listening to these and then pausing and repeating them before you continue to the next one. Anna will say each of them twice, just so that you can get some good practice in. Remember, speed is not the most important thing. The most important thing is enunciation. Seeing how fast you can enunciate the words correctly [emphasis] should be your aim. |
| Please note that we will not be trying to explain the tongue twisters in any way. Tongue twisters often don't make a great deal of sense. In fact, some of them can be complete nonsense. They are more about the sounds than about the meaning. |
| This first tongue twister is a rather fun one. It translates loosely to: "On the head a cap, on the cap a needle." |
| Anna: Pe cap un capac, pe capac un ac. |
| Antoni: And one more time. |
| Anna: [SLOWLY] Pe cap un capac, pe capac un ac. |
| Antoni: The next tongue twister translates to: "That sheep is hers, I'll take it." Unlike most other tongue twisters, it is composed exclusively of vowels. Not a single consonant to be heard. |
| Anna: Oaia aia e a ei, eu i-o iau. |
| Antoni: Once again. |
| Anna: [SLOWLY] Oaia aia e a ei, eu i-o iau. |
| Antoni: From sheep, let's now move to the subject of trees. The translation of this one is: "Stanca is sitting in a chestnut tree like Stan." |
| Anna: Stanca stă-n castan ca Stan. |
| Antoni: And now let's hear that again. |
| Anna: [SLOWLY] Stanca stă-n castan ca Stan. |
| Antoni: As you can hear, except for the tongue twister that was all vowels, alliteration is frequently used in tongue twisters. Here's another one that uses a lot of "S" words. It translates to: "Six Saxons in six sacks." |
| Anna: Șase sași în șase saci. |
| Antoni: And one more time, please Anna. |
| Anna: [SLOWLY] Șase sași în șase saci. |
| Antoni: If you're feeling brave, you could also try the extended version which is even tough to say in English. It translates to: "Six hundred sixty-six Saxons in six-hundred sixty-six sacks." This is how to say it in Romanian: |
| Anna: Șase sute șaizeci și șase de sași în șase sute șaizeci și șase de saci. |
| Antoni: Let's hear it again. |
| Anna: [SLOWLY] Șase sute șaizeci și șase de sași în șase sute șaizeci și șase de saci. |
| Antoni: And to move away from "S" words, let's try a last one with "Bs" [pronounced "bees"]. There's a lot of alliteration in this one, which makes it a lot of fun to say. It means: "A blonde old lady eats a huge banana." |
| Anna: O babă bălană mănâncă o banană babană. |
| Antoni: And one more time for practice. |
| Anna: [SLOWLY] O babă bălană mănâncă o banană babană. |
| Antoni: You now have quite a few tongue twisters to practice with. It would be a good idea to look for more so that you can practice as many sounds as possible in Romanian. |
| Practice Section |
| Antoni: Let's review. Respond to the prompts by speaking aloud. Then, repeat after the native speaker, focusing on pronunciation. |
| Do you remember how Sasha Lee says "Can you tell me a tongue twister in Romanian?" |
| [Beep. Pause 5 seconds.] |
| Anna as Sasha Lee: Poți să îmi spui o frântură de limbă în română? |
| Antoni: Listen again and repeat. |
| Anna as Sasha Lee: Poți să îmi spui o frântură de limbă în română? |
| [Beep. Pause 5 seconds.] |
| Anna as Sasha Lee: Poți să îmi spui o frântură de limbă în română? |
| Antoni: And do you remember how Veronica Voicu says, "The stone breaks the goat, the goat breaks the stone?" |
| [Beep. Pause 5 seconds.] |
| Anna as Veronica Voicu: Piatra crapă capra, capra crapă piatra. |
| Antoni: Listen again and repeat. |
| Anna as Veronica Voicu: Piatra crapă capra, capra crapă piatra. |
| [Beep. Pause 5 seconds.] |
| Anna as Veronica Voicu: Piatra crapă capra, capra crapă piatra. |
| Cultural Insight/Expansion (Optional) |
| Antoni: An important point to remember, while you are practicing your tongue twisters, is where to place the stress in Romanian words. In order to clarify what we mean by the word "stress," let's compare an English and a Romanian word that mean the same thing. The word, in English, is "naval," and it refers to anything to do with ships. You will hear that the stress, in this word, is on the first syllable. It is a bit more emphasized than the second syllable. The Romanian word, however, sounds like this: |
| Anna: naval. |
| Antoni: As you can hear, the stress falls on the second syllable in this case. It receives greater emphasis than the first. In Romanian, the stress can fall on any syllable in a word, so it's important to listen as often as possible to native speakers, speaking the language. Knowing where the stress falls can sometimes make a huge difference to meaning. Consider this word for example: |
| Anna: copii |
| Antoni: It means "copies" and is spelled exactly the same way as this next word: |
| Anna: copii. |
| Antoni: This time, however, Larissa was referring to "children." Naturally, learning this kind of thing takes some time, so you will have to be patient and persist! |
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) |
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