Learn about grammatical gender in Romanian
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Intro |
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| Antoni: How can a word be masculine or feminine? |
| Anna: And how do you determine a noun's gender in Romanian? |
| Antoni: At RomanianPod101.com, we hear these questions often. In the following situation, Karen Lee is at a flower shop with her friend, Ioana Iordache. She says to her friend, |
| "Look, a red rose and a red tulip." |
| Karen Lee: Uite, un trandafir roșu și o lalea roșie. |
| Dialogue |
| Karen Lee: Uite, un trandafir roșu și o lalea roșie. |
| Ioana Iordache: Ce frumoase! |
| Antoni: Once more with the English translation. |
| Karen Lee: Uite, un trandafir roșu și o lalea roșie. |
| Antoni: "Look, a red rose and a red tulip." |
| Ioana Iordache: Ce frumoase! |
| Antoni: "How pretty!" |
Lesson focus |
| Antoni: Did you notice that the nouns |
| Anna: trandafir |
| Antoni: and |
| Anna: lalea |
| Antoni: are preceded by different versions of the article meaning 'a'? This is because, in Romanian, every noun has a gender, and the article changes to match that gender. In Romanian, the article |
| Anna: un |
| Antoni: is used for masculine nouns, and the article |
| Anna: o |
| Antoni: for feminine nouns. Other Romance languages have masculine and feminine nouns too. It's a trait that comes from Latin. In fact, it's common among many languages in the Indo-European language family. But gender here doesn't mean that a word is somehow male or female. People don't think of certain objects as somehow being like a man or somehow like a woman. And, in most cases, the gender of a Romanian word is based on the gender that was assigned to it in Latin. |
| But did you know that Romanian also has a neuter gender? They name things that are neither feminine or masculine. The singular neuter nouns take a masculine form while the plural neuter nouns take a feminine form. Mostly, they are names for inanimate objects. They are tricky to recognize, though, as there are no firm language rules governing them. |
| Recall 1 |
| Let's take a closer look at the dialogue. Do you remember how Karen Lee says, |
| "Look, a red rose and a red tulip." |
| [PAUSE 4 SEC] |
| Anna: Uite, un trandafir roșu și o lalea roșie. |
| Antoni: Here, the word for "rose" |
| Anna: trandafir |
| Antoni: is masculine, and the word for "tulip" |
| Anna: lalea |
| Antoni: is feminine. But how do we know which nouns are which? The easiest way to tell the gender of a noun is by looking at the last letter of the word. The first thing you will notice is whether the last letter is a vowel or a consonant. Right? So, this is your first clue: if the last letter is a consonant, that noun is definitely not feminine! Singular feminine nouns have to end in a vowel. This doesn't mean that all vowel-endings make the word feminine though. So, how will we know? |
| The first rule is that, if a noun ends in 'a,' it is almost always feminine. It will also be singular, never plural. For example, |
| Anna: [NORMAL] o soră [SLOWLY] o soră |
| [PAUSE 3 SEC] |
| Antoni: meaning "a sister," and |
| Anna: [NORMAL] o lună [SLOWLY] o lună |
| [PAUSE 3 SEC] |
| Antoni: meaning "a moon." This is why Karen Lee referred to the tulip as |
| Anna: o lalea |
| Antoni: The next rule is that nouns ending in 'i-e' are also feminine, with almost no exceptions. For example, the word for "woman" is |
| Anna: [NORMAL] femeie [SLOWLY] femeie |
| [PAUSE 3 SEC] |
| Antoni: and the word for "dress" is |
| Anna: [NORMAL] rochie [SLOWLY] rochie |
| [PAUSE 3 SEC] |
| Antoni: Then, nouns that end just in 'e' can be feminine, masculine, or neuter. The rules in this category are quite complex, and it will help you to learn the gender of these nouns off by heart. Let's compare two nouns ending in 'e.' The word for "flower" is feminine, |
| Anna: [NORMAL] floare [SLOWLY] floare |
| [PAUSE 3 SEC] |
| Antoni: but the word for "fish" is masculine, |
| Anna: [NORMAL] peşte [SLOWLY] peşte |
| Antoni: An example of a neuter plural noun ending in 'e' is |
| Anna: [NORMAL] scaune [SLOWLY] scaune |
| Antoni: which means "chairs." Without the 'e,' it is a singular neuter noun, |
| Anna: [NORMAL] scaun [SLOWLY] scaun |
| Antoni: and it means "chair" or "seat." |
| [PAUSE 3 SEC] |
| Antoni: Since you can't tell their gender just by the ending, you will simply have to get to know them! |
| This brings us to nouns that end in 'i.' Almost all nouns ending in 'i' are not feminine. One of the very few exceptions is the days of the week. For example, "Monday," "Tuesday," and "Wednesday," |
| Anna: luni, marți, miercuri |
| Antoni: These are feminine nouns ending in 'i.' Most other nouns ending in 'i' are either masculine or neuter. For example, these are masculine nouns— |
| Anna: [NORMAL] ochi [SLOWLY] ochi |
| [PAUSE 3 SEC] |
| Antoni: which means "eye," and |
| Anna: [NORMAL] unchi [SLOWLY] unchi |
| [PAUSE 3 SEC] |
| Antoni: meaning "uncle." Neuter nouns ending with 'i' include |
| Anna: [NORMAL] ceai [SLOWLY] ceai, |
| Antoni: which means "tea" and |
| Anna: [SLOWLY] unghi [NORMAL] unghi |
| Antoni: which means "angle." The last two vowel endings to look at are 'o' and 'u.' Nouns ending in these are never going to be feminine. For example, the word meaning "bull" |
| Anna: bou |
| Antoni: is spelled b-o-u and is masculine, while the word |
| Anna: [SLOWLY] lucru [NORMAL] lucru |
| Antoni: means "job" or "thing," and it is a neuter noun ending in 'u,' Next, we will talk about consonant endings. Since we already know that nouns ending in a consonant cannot be feminine, we know they must be either masculine or neuter. Here are some examples. The word for "child" is |
| Anna: [NORMAL] copil [SLOWLY] copil |
| [PAUSE 3 SEC] |
| Antoni: and the word for "male teacher" is |
| Anna: [NORMAL] profesor [SLOWLY] profesor. |
| [PAUSE 3 SEC] |
| Antoni: Both end in consonants and are masculine nouns. Neuter nouns ending on a consonant include |
| Anna: [NORMAL] univers [SLOWLY] univers |
| Antoni: which means "universe," and |
| Anna: [NORMAL] drum [SLOWLY] drum |
| Antoni: which means "road." In the dialogue, we used another noun ending in a consonant. Can you remember what it was? |
| [PAUSE 3 SEC] |
| Anna: trandafir |
| Antoni: Yes! This word means "rose" and it ends with the consonant 'r.' That is how we know it's a masculine noun. |
| Now let's take a quick look at how adjectives are affected by the gender of the nouns they modify. Listen again to what Karen Lee says: |
| Anna as Karen Lee: Uite, un trandafir roșu și o lalea roșie. |
| Antoni: Here, the noun meaning "rose" |
| Anna: trandafir |
| Antoni: is followed by the adjective |
| Anna: roșu |
| Antoni: and the noun meaning "tulip" |
| Anna: lalea |
| Antoni: is followed by the adjective |
| Anna: roșie. |
| Antoni: Both mean "red," so why are they different? It's because the word changes its form depending on the noun it modifies. In other words, when an adjective is modifying a masculine noun, it must also be masculine, and when an adjective is modifying a feminine noun, it must also be feminine. The adjective must always agree in gender and number with the noun! Since "rose" is masculine, it takes the masculine article and is followed by a masculine adjective |
| Anna: un trandafir roșu |
| Antoni: And, since "tulip" is feminine, it takes the feminine article and is followed by a feminine adjective |
| Anna: o lalea roșie. |
| Antoni: You probably have a better understanding of noun gender in the singular now, but how do nouns change in the plural form? In Romanian, masculine plural nouns end in 'i,' and most feminine plural nouns end in 'e,' with some exceptions. Here are some easy examples! First, the word meaning "friend" is masculine. So, "one friend" is |
| Anna: [NORMAL] un prieten [SLOWLY] un prieten |
| [PAUSE 3 SEC] |
| Antoni: and "two friends" is |
| Anna: [NORMAL] doi prieteni [SLOWLY] doi prieteni |
| [PAUSE 3 SEC] |
| Antoni: The word meaning "island" is feminine. So, "one island" will be |
| Anna: [NORMAL] o insulă SLOWLY] o insulă |
| [PAUSE 3 SEC] |
| Antoni: and "two islands" will be |
| Anna: [NORMAL] două insule SLOWLY] două insule |
| [PAUSE 3 SEC] |
| [Summary] |
| Antoni: So far, we have learned that nouns ending in 'a' or 'e-i' are almost always feminine, nouns ending in 'e' could be any gender, and all other nouns have to be either masculine or neuter. We have also learned how the plural is formed in both the masculine and feminine. |
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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