Romanian Profile (Collaborative writing) Language Learning Forum

Romanian Profile
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Language Learning Forum : Collaborative writing

17 messages over 3 pages: 1 2 3 Next >>

Chung
Diglot
Senior Member
Joined 6944 days ago
4228 posts - 8259 votes

20 sounds
Speaks: English*, French
Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish

Message 9 of 17

07 August 2009 at 3:51am | IP Logged

Cristiana wrote:

Bravo!
Excellent work, Chung! This is amazing. I did consider doing a description (or partial description) myself, but I had no idea how to go about it and I couldn't summon up much enthusiasm either. Knowing that someone is this enthusiastic about Romanian makes me happy :-)
There are indeed not that many resources for studying Romanian. I know some Russian-based textbooks that you can find online, but they're old, have no audio and are generally lacking. There's also an Italian-based Assimil course (I skimmed it and found some mistakes though). Other than that there's nothing I can offer, except maybe this site, which is the Romanian version of urbandictionary. :-) Maybe someone will find it useful:
http://www.123urban.ro/

Hm, I noticed a few very small spelling mistakes in your description:
voi observăţi “you notice” - [B]voi observ[U]aţi[/U][/B]
voi lucrăţi “you work” - [B]voi lucr[U]aţi[/U][/B]
ei/ele lucreăza “they work” - [B]ei/ele lucre[U]ază[/U][/B]

Also, regarding the final "-i": I can't find a rule stating when it's pronounced as [-i] (vowel) or as [-j] (semi-vowel). However, I doubt the letter "r" plays a role here, since I can think of words like flori "flowers", păsări "birds", beri "beers", mori "(you) die", nori "clouds" in which the "i" is hardly pronounced and the "-ri" is not a separate syllable.
A friend and I tried to come up with a rule ourselves, and this is what we thought of:

"-i" at the end of a word is fully pronounced in:
- Plurals (masc. gender only), when the singular ends in "-consonant+u"
sob[B]ru[/B] - sobri "austere"
ac[B]ru[/B] - acri "sour"
met[B]ru[/B] - metri "meter"
asp[B]ru[/B] - aspri "rough"
cod[B]ru[/B] - codri "forest"
amp[B]lu[/B] - ampli "ample"

- Verbs, in the following tenses:
infinitive - a vorbi "to speak"
future 1 - (eu) voi vorbi "(I) will speak"
simple perfect - (el) vorbi "(he) spoke"

I can't think of any exceptions or other cases. I'll ask around. Maybe someone here actually knows the rule and could inform us.

Thanks for the corrections, Cristiana. It turns out that I had overlooked something about pronouncing the final "i". According to my copy of "Teach Yourself Romanian", the rule is that final "i" is barely pronounced except in cases where the "i" is preceded by a cluster of consonant + "r". This would fit with your pronunciation of final "i" in words such as "acri", "vorbi", "ampli" etc.
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Cristiana
Diglot
Newbie
Romania
Joined 5788 days ago
31 posts - 38 votes
Speaks: Romanian*, English
Studies: Russian

Message 10 of 17

07 August 2009 at 11:33am | IP Logged

Well, not "ampli" :) but indeed, most of them do seem to have a "consonant+r-" at the end. So yes, that simplified rule might work, but for nouns only. It's different when it's a verb. "Vorbi" was just an example. Şti, veni, simţi, chinui, amăgi, cheltui (know, come, feel, torment, deceive, spend) don't have any kind of "r" but you still pronounce the i.

However, it's not the most important part of Romanian grammar so I'll leave it alone now :)
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lindsey Bryant
Newbie
United States
Joined 5373 days ago
1 posts - 2 votes
Speaks: English*
Studies: Russian, Romanian, Slovak

Message 11 of 17

11 August 2009 at 12:18am | IP Logged

According to my copy of "Discover Romanian" (and what I've heard in the spoken language and in songs), the final
-i is only fully pronounced when it follows a consonant+l/r, in plural forms (when it replaces -u), and whenever
you use the verb infinitive form.

For example, the -i is pronounced fully in "voi vorbi" (like you said above) because it uses the infinitive (a vorbi -
minus the "a" of course).

And for "el vorbi," I believe it is only pronounced because the simple perfect is formed by adding endings to the
infinitive form. So without an added ending (which is the case for the el/ea forms), you're just left with the
infinitive.
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Cristiana
Diglot
Newbie
Romania
Joined 5788 days ago
31 posts - 38 votes
Speaks: Romanian*, English
Studies: Russian

Message 12 of 17

11 August 2009 at 1:11am | IP Logged

That makes sense Lindsey, thank you!
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GFlux
Newbie
United States
Joined 5141 days ago
1 posts - 1 votes
Speaks: English*
Studies: Romanian

Message 13 of 17

31 March 2010 at 1:19pm | IP Logged

Oh, this was very informative and helped me understand -i a bit better. Thanks everyone for contributing to this thread.
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Smart
Tetraglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5127 days ago
352 posts - 398 votes

Speaks: Spanish, English*, Latin, French
Studies: German

Message 14 of 17

15 April 2010 at 9:24am | IP Logged

Romanian is a beautiful language.

Very informative profile.
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arianna
Newbie
Romania
inchirierimasini.inf
Joined 5006 days ago
1 posts - 1 votes

Message 15 of 17

12 August 2010 at 3:34pm | IP Logged

A very informative and innovative post you have here. I am encouraging you to write more about this very useful topic because as I have read and is very useful. I really wish that I learn a foreign language, especially English
Regards, Arianna Sibiu

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Chung
Diglot
Senior Member
Joined 6944 days ago
4228 posts - 8259 votes

20 sounds
Speaks: English*, French
Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish

Message 16 of 17

18 November 2010 at 6:33am | IP Logged

arianna wrote:

Belated thanks and mulţumesc to Smart and arianna.

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