Street Conversation II
Today I decided to be a little braver and ask for a girl’s name.
Sergiu: Bună.
Hello.
Union Square Girl: Salut.
Hi.
Sergiu: Cum te cheamă?
What’s your name?
Union Square Girl: Timea.
Sergiu: Pe mine* mă cheamă Sergiu.
My name is Sergiu.
Timea: Îmi pare bine**
Nice to meet you!
*Pe mine (me) is the long form of the accusative personal pronoun and since pe means “on”, pe mine literally means “on me”.
*Îmi pare bine literally means “It looks good to me”. We say îmi (to me) very fast so it sounds like it’s not there
Grammar II
Verbs and personal pronouns
Today we’ll continue with the verb a chema (to call). It’s crucial to learn this one so you can say your name.
| Eu chem | I call |
| Tu chemi | You call |
| El, ea cheamă | He, she calls |
| Noi chemăm | We call |
| Voi chemaţi | You call |
| Ei, ele cheamă | They call |
Taking it a step further, how would someone say “they call me”? You need to learn the two forms of the personal pronoun in accusative for that. The first one is the long version and the second one in the table is the short version.
| Pe mine, mă | Me |
| Pe tine, te | You |
| Pe el, îl
Pe ea, o |
Him
Her |
| Pe noi, ne | Us |
| Pe voi, vă | You |
| Pe ei, îi
Pe ele, le |
Them (Men)
Them (Women) |
To say “they call me”, you can say ei mă cheamă pe mine. But that’s using all the pronouns possible. Remember, the personal pronoun is not mandatory, so we can say mă cheamă pe mine. The long form of the accusative personal pronoun is not needed either, so in the end you can just say mă cheamă.
Another great verb is a se numi (to name oneself). Where a means “to” and se means “oneself”.
| Eu mă numesc | I name myself |
| Tu te numeşti | You name yourself |
| El, ea se numeşte | He, she names himself, herself |
| Noi ne numim | We name ourselves |
| Voi vă numiţi | You name yourselves |
| Ei, ele se numesc | They name themselves |
The difference between o numeşte and se numeşte is that in the first case somebody else is calling her and in the second case, she is calling herself. Se means himself or herself and o means her.
Dialogue II
Sergiu: Salut.
Hi.
Daniela: Salut. Cum te cheamă?*
Hi. What’s your name?
Sergiu: Mă cheamă Sergiu, pe tine?
My name is Sergiu, and yours?
Daniela: Mă cheamă Daniela.
My name is Daniela.
*“How do they call you?” is in fact the way we ask someone for their names.
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Key Vocabulary II
Bună – Hi
Hei – A very casual “hi”
Îmi pare bine – Nice to meet you
Și mie – Me too
Sound clips not working. About to give up and use another website. Cheers.
I understand it can be frustrating, however there’s a solution to this. If you have access to use Mozilla Firefox, Safari or Google Chrome you will be able to hear the audio.
greaat, making a start!
The final “i” in “numeşti” and “numiţi”, are they silent?
The final “i” combines with “t” and “ț” to form the palatalized versions of these consonants. If you are familiar with any of the Slavic languages or Mandarin Chinese, then you already know the concept of palatalization.
I will create a video on the topic of Romanian phonology, so stay tuned.
I believe the accusative pronoun chart has on part flipped. “Pe el, îl” is set to “Her” and “Pe ea, o” is set to “Him”, but I think it should be the opposite.
Hi,
This is now fixed. Thank you for pointing it out.
This site still is awesome! Thanks very much for helping people learn the language.
Hey Junior,
I don’t think this site was ever not awesome!
Regards,
The Simple Romanian Founder
Not sure why a learning vocabulary for beginners has vagina, sperm, penis, testicle and juicy all together straight after one another to learn! And why a beginner would need these when all you usually want to know is how to order a coffee! This book is just a list of words, no explanations or pronunciation assistance. Even just a simple one page at the beginning to explain the sounds of the words with breves, circumflexes etc would have made it so much better and easier. So I cannot recommend it.
Show me which lesson has vagina as a word so I can delete that entire lesson. I wonder who could write it on my website.
Regards,
Sergiu