Part 3 * Gender and Vocab Buster-1

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Buna şi Salut ! One day passed, I guess till now my readers are able to speak any word in Română  correctly, well almost correctly. So finally we have reached to a point where things are going to get very interesting. For studying a language thoroughly, you need to have focus on only two things: Vocabulary and Grammar. Now both of them have their own importance and one is incomplete without other.

        

       From today, I am going to add a very interesting stuff with my blog which is called Vocab Buster. In Vocab Buster, I will give you pics and I will explain vocabulary of everything related to them. Well everything which is important and useful otherwise you can buy a dictionary and see so many words there which is not even useful in day to day life. This Vocab Buster will build up your vocabulary.

       

        But first thing first :) , so today I have used a new word if you noticed : şi, it means and. I am so happy that now you can speak any word so believe me, all is left is to grab good selected vocabulary and grammar rules. So let’s START !!!

Vocab Buster

Now if we talk about food and we don’t take name of Romania, it would be totally not fair. Here, food really has so much variety and taste so our Vocab Buster will start from there. One more reason is that food is basic need for living so you ought to know the vocabulary related to food as you will use them very frequently in your day to day life.

       

         Above pic represents a traditional dish of Romania called Mămăligă (yellow colour) with the garnishing of ciupercă (mashroom)

Above pic is a dish of small tomatoes which are very tasty and can be eaten full in one shot. Here they are called as cherry (English pronunciation) named after the fruit cherry as they are similar in size. We prepare them with filling of vânătă (Egg plant) and those squares are of caşcaval (Pressed cheese). Usually caşcaval is misunderstood with normal cheese, that’s why I explained it with help of pic.

Here comes a sweet dish which I personally only tasted here. It’s made up of zahăr (sugar), orez (rice) and lapte (milk) with garnishing of cinnamon.

So who is hungry ? J Actually I should ask who is not ? J Ok so I hurry up so that our little tummies can get satisfied soon :) .

        So let’s have a quick look on what we learned so far:

Word	Meaning
Mămăligă(f)	Traditional dish of Romania made up of corn and water
Ciupercă	Mushroom
Cherry(English sound)(f)	Very small tomatoes named after fruit cherry.
Vânătă	Eggplant
Caşcaval	Pressed cheese
Orez	Rice
Lapte	Milk
Zahăr	Sugar

 

       Now as you have got an idea what our Vocab Buster has brought us today, lets bring it in and learn some words in Română:

English	Română
Vegetables  -   Legume(p)(f)
Bean	Fasole(f)
Cabbage	Varză(f)
Cauliflower	Conopidă(f)
Eggplant	Vânătă(f)
Mushroom	Ciupercă(f)
Pea	Mazăre(f)
Potato	Cartof(m)
Pumpkin	Dovleac(m)
Salad - Salată(f)
Beetroot	Sfeclă(f)
Carrot	Morcov(m)
Chilli	Ardei iute(m)
Cucumber	Castravete(m)
Garlic	Usturoi(m)
Lemon	Lămâie(f)
Onion	Ceapă(f)
Olive	Măslin(m)
Radish	Ridiche(f)
Salt	Sare(f)
Sugar	Zahăr(n)
Tomato	Roşie(f)
Fruits - Fructe(p)(n)
Apple	Măr(n)
Apricot	Caisă(f)
Blueberry	Afină(f)
Blackberry	Mură(f)
Cherry	Cireașă(f)
Coconut	nucă de cocos(f)
Cranberry	Merișor(m)
Fig	Smochin(m)
Gooseberry	Agrișă(f)
Grapes	Struguri(p)(m)
Mulberry	Dudă(f)
Orange	Portocală(f)
Peach	Piersică(f)
Pear	Pară(f)
Pineapple	Ananas(m)
Pomegranate	Rodie(f)
Quince	Gutuie(f)
Raspberry	Zmeură(f)
Strawberry	Căpșună(f)
Grains - Grâne/cereale(p)(f)
Barley	Orz(m)
Corn	Porumb(m)
Oats	Ovăz(m)
Rice	Orez(m)
Rye	Secară(f)
Semolina	Griș(n)
Wheat	Grâu(m)
Nuts - nuci(p)(f)
Chestnut	Castană(f)
Cashew	Caju(m)
Filbert	Alună(f)
Pistachio	Fistic(m)
Peanut	Arahidă(f)
Seeds - semințe(p)(f)
Sunflower	floarea-soarelui (f)
Sesame seed	Susan(m)
Dairy products - lactate(p)(f)
Butter	Unt(n)
Cheese	Brânză(f)
Icecream	Îngheţată(f)
Milk	Lapte(n)
Extra - Extra(f)
Egg	Ou(n)
Ginger	Ghimbir(n)
Raisin	Stafidă(f)
Tea	Ceai(n)
Water	Apă(f)

  

Hmm, long list eh? Though I have tried to list everything I could think of as a generally used food but its possible that you possess some extra ordinary tastes J so feel free to add up in list by yourself :P.

      Now one important thing, you can see that in last of every word in Română, there is written in brackets either f or m or n. Now, f stands for feminine gender, m stands for masculine gender and n stands for neuter gender. So as of now you know that unlikely English, Română has three genders, feminine, masculine and neutar and mark my words when I say that it is really important to know the gender of noun in Română. That is why I have mentioned gender of each and every word I have explained above and please notice that every word is in its singular form except those which are mentioned with (p) which stands for plural.

        Now make it as our little secret, Now on anytime I explain any word, it would be with these markings. As plural takes different form of word than singular so its really important to know the  mode of word or more precisely noun.

  

       Now lets have a look on few words which I didnt list in above table because of three following reasons.

Reason 1 : I am confused

We all are familiar with Capsicum or bell pepper, in Romania, two kind of capsicum exists, one is called ardei gras which is thin and less tasty and other is called gogoșar which is more tasty and thick in nature. So there exist two words in Română  for same vegetable qhich is bit confusing but now you know the difference so when you go to market, be sure about what you are buying J .

Reason 2 : Wow, that’s easy to remember

There are few words in Română which are either exactly adapted from English with same pronunciation and spelling or they sound bit similar like in English ones thats why they are easy to learn and remember. Lets have a look :

Adopted from English, same in spelling and pronunciation :

Broccoli, Avocado, Goji, Grapefruit, Kiwi, Popcorn

Pronunciation almost same like English:

Pepper – Piper(m), banana-banană(f), Mango – Mango(f), nectarine – nectarină(f), Clementine(also called tangerine)- Clementină(f)(also called mandarină(f)), margarine-margarină(f), yogurt-iaurt(m), cream-cremă(f)

Reason 3 : Adjectives

There are few words which are just distinguished by their properties like color or taste. That means they are mentioned with adjective . Hold on J following example will make you clear what I am talking about.

Bean - fasole(f)

Green Bean - Fasole verde(f)

Green/Spring onion - Ceapă verde(f)

Melon(Cantaloupe) - Pepene galben(m)

Water melon – pepene verde(m)

redcurrant- Coacăze roșii (p)(f)

blackcurrant- coacăze  negre (p)(f)

Lime - Lămâie verde(f)

Sweet potato-cartof dulce (m)

Now as you can see that every word is associated with words like verde(green), galben(yellow), rosii (red in plural form), negre (black in plural form) and dulce (sweet). These are called adjectives which describes the property of associated noun. So here you get to know one important fact :

In Română, adjectives always comes after the noun it modifies and it takes same gender and number(singular or plural) as the noun.

So most of adjectives in Română are of four forms but we will come to that in later parts. For moment all you need to know about adjectives is the above fact.

One last time I mention, until unless I mention that word is in its plural form by adding sign : (p), always take it as singular.

So here ends our Vocab Buster. A lots of vocabularies  :) . It might sound hard to remember all of that load in sudden but believe me, if you keep practicing then with time they will be on your tongue.

       One important thing to notice as we have started deep vocabularies. In Romania, you can find different names for same thing depending upon the region. In other words, people like to develop few regional words for some things. For example, there are places in Romania where people call pumpkin as bostan instead of dovleac.

       So here, I am giving you words which are most commonly used in throughout the country but still if you come across some strange word which you don’t find in your vocabulary for something you know, please don’t fight J just add that word in your list with smile ;) .

In last, as now you know about gender, let me mention gender of the nouns we learned in part 2:

Week Days
Word	Meaning
Luni(f)	Monday
Marţi(f)	Tuesday
Miercuri(f)	Wednesday
Joi(f)	Thursday
Vineri(f)	Friday
Sâmbătă(f)	Saturday
Duminică(f)	Sunday

Easy huh ? J No need to say I guess that why I didn’t mention them in last part.

Ok so I know there is a lot right now going on in your mind and it will take time to memorize all these words. Have patience, I tell you a trick to remember them. Start using those words in your daily speaking language. For example:

I want a pară (pear).

So the trick is to speak all in your language but replace the particular noun. It worked for me to memorize those words. Maybe it does for you too. GOOD LUCK !!!

Today we have started some real learning. Keep it up. By the end of week, you will feel that how fast you are progressing in this beautiful language. All I want for you is to just keep up.

Feel free to leave comments and suggestions. Bookmark this page if you find it useful. Thanks for keep reading :)