Learn how to apologize in Romanian
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| INTRODUCTION |
| Salut, and welcome to Romanian Survival Phrases, brought to you by RomanianPod101.com |
| This course is designed to equip you with the language skills and knowledge to enable you to get the most out of your visit to Romania. You'll be surprised at how far a little Romanian will go. |
| Now before we jump in, remember to stop by RomanianPod101.com. |
| There, you’ll find the accompanying PDF lesson notes and additional info in the post. If you stop by, be sure to leave us a comment. |
| In this lesson, we'll cover phrases used for apologizing. Since you haven’t quite mastered Romanian, it's probably a good idea to go over the phrases for apologizing, as they’ll definitely come in handy. |
| BODY |
| One of the most common ways of saying “Excuse me” or “Pardon me,” in Romanian is |
| Mă scuzați. |
| Let’s break it down: |
| (slow) Mă scu-zați. |
| Once more: |
| Mă scuzați. |
| This expression can be used when you want to get someone’s attention, before asking a question to a stranger, such as asking for directions, or when you try to work your way through a crowd. Just say mă scuzați! And simply by changing the order of the words in this expression, we get another common form of apologizing, scuzați-mă, which can be used in the same circumstances. |
| If you want to be even more apologetic, or if you’ve done something worse than just bumping into someone, you can say “I’m very sorry”. That’s Îmi cer scuze. Literally, this phrase means “I ask apologies”. |
| Let’s break it down: |
| (slow) Îmi cer scu-ze. |
| Once more: |
| Îmi cer scuze. |
| The first word, îmi, is a form of the pronoun “eu” which means “I”, and it has no literal translation in English. |
| Îmi. |
| The second word, cer, is a conjugated verb, literally translated as “ask”. |
| Cer. |
| The third word scuze means “excuses.” |
| All together, we have |
| (slow) Îmi cer scu-ze. |
| Îmi cer scuze. |
| There are also two short versions of apologizing – Scuze and Scuzați. Both of them are equivalent to the English “sorry”. |
| Let’s hear them one more time: |
| (slow) Scuze. |
| Scuze. |
| and |
| (slow) Scuzați. |
| Scuzați. |
| Both of them are polite, yet they are used for minor apologies. |
| Literally, scuze means “excuses” and Scuzați means “excuse (me)”. |
| Îmi cer iertare is another way to say you are very sorry. It is used only for big apologies. |
| Let’s break it down: |
| (slow) Îmi cer ier-ta-re. |
| Once more: |
| Îmi cer iertare. |
| We have already explained the meaning of îmi cer in this lesson. |
| Next we have iertare which means “forgiveness”. |
| (slow) Ier-ta-re. |
| Iertare. |
| Let’s hear the whole expression one more time: |
| (slow) Îmi cer ier-ta-re. |
| Îmi cer iertare. |
| REVIEW |
| Okay, to close out this lesson, we'd like you to practice what you've just learned. I'll provide you with the English equivalent of the phrase and you're responsible for saying it aloud. You have a few seconds before I give you the answer, so mult noroc , which means "Good luck!" in Romanian. |
| “Excuse me.” |
| (3 sec) Mă scuzați. |
| (slow) Mă scu-zați. |
| Mă scuzați. |
| “Excuse me.” |
| (3 sec) Scuzați-mă. |
| (slow) Scu-za-ți-mă. |
| Scuzați-mă. |
| “I’m very sorry.” (Literally: I ask excuses.) |
| (3 sec) Îmi cer scuze. |
| (slow) Îmi cer scu-ze. |
| Îmi cer scuze. |
| “Sorry.” |
| (3 sec) Scuze. |
| (slow) Scuze. |
| Scuze. |
| “Sorry.” |
| (3 sec) Scuzați. |
| (slow) Scuzați. |
| Scuzați. |
| “I’m very sorry.” (Literally: I ask forgiveness.) |
| (3 sec) Îmi cer iertare. |
| (slow) Îmi cer ier-ta-re. |
| Îmi cer iertare. |
Outro |
|---|
| All right, that's all for this lesson! |
| Remember to stop by RomanianPod101.com and pick up the accompanying PDF lesson notes. |
| If you stop by, be sure to leave us a comment. |
| Pa! |
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