Lesson 3 – Nationalities

 

Street Conversation III

Eventually I will get the courage to lie that I’m from Sweden, but right now England’s good enough. (This conversation is spontaneous, whenever you read “Street Conversation” remember it’s a natural and unscripted conversation).

 

Sergiu: Eşti româncă?

Are you Romanian?

University girl: Da, tu eşti român?

Yes, are you Romanian?

Sergiu: Nu, eu sunt englez.

No, I'm English.

University girl: Super!

Sergiu: Yes!

Grammar III

Verbs

Today we’ll keep it short and easy and we’ll look and listen to the verb to come (a veni).

 

Vin I come
Vii You come
Vine She comes
Venim We come
Veniţi You come
Vin They come
Past tense of “to come”
Am venit* I came
Ai venit You came
A venit He, she came
Am venit We came
Aţi venit You came
Au venit They came

*I am not going to teach the past tense in this lesson, but I do have to delve in it a bit just to introduce you to a well-known expression in any language.

Venit is the past participle of the verb a veni while the words before it: am, ai, a etc. are known as helping verbs to form the past tense. Simply put, in order to form the most common past tense in Romanian, you need a helping verb that is conjugated followed by a fixed participle of the main verb.

We will learn another expression that behaves similarly with bună ziua, it wouldn’t sound natural if it weren’t an expression. We say welcome as “well you came”. Take a look at the below sentences:

 

Ai venit bine. You came well.

Bine ai venit! Welcome!

Dialogue III

 

Sergiu: Eşti româncă?

Are you Romanian?

Daniela: Da, sunt româncă, tu?

Yes, I'm Romanian, you?

Sergiu: Eu sunt englez.

I'm English.

Daniela: Bine ai venit!

Welcome!

Key Vocabulary III

Ţară – country

România – Romania

Anglia – England

Franţa – France

Statele Unite – USA

Germania – Germany

Ungaria – Hungary

Italia – Italy

Grecia – Greece

The nationalities for each country are in the table below. The noun on the left is for men and the one on the right for women.

 

Român (Romanian) Româncă
Englez (English) Englezoaică
Francez (French) Franţuzoaică
American (American) Americancă
German (German) Germancă
Ungur (Hungarian) Unguroaică
Italian (Italian) Italiancă
Grec (Greek) Grecoaică

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9 thoughts on “Lesson 3 – Nationalities”

  1. Salut,
    To say ”I’m from Scotland.” would I say „Eu sunt Scoția.”? Or would it be more natural to just say „Sunt Scoția.”
    Mulțumesc 🙂

    1. Hi,
      You would say “Sunt din Scoția” where “din” means “from”.
      You’re right that it’s more natural to skip the personal pronouns.

  2. Salut! Sunt din Ucraina (sunt ucrainean XD). Vorbesc engleză, ucraineană, polacă (?), portugheză și un puțin de franceză cu spaniolă ^^

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