Dialogue

Vocabulary

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Lesson Transcript

INTRODUCTION
Asia: Hi everyone, and welcome back to RomanianPod101.com. This is Absolute Beginner Season 1 Lesson 5 - Will the Weather Hold Up for Your Beach Weekend in Romania? Asia Here.
Mihai: Bună. I'm Mihai.
Asia: In this lesson, you’ll learn how to discuss weather forecasts. The conversation takes place at Bucharest City Center.
Mihai: It's between Masanobu, Andreea, and Mihai.
Asia: The speakers are friends, therefore, they will speak informal Romanian. Okay, let's listen to the conversation.
DIALOGUE
Masanobu: Ce cald este astăzi!
Mihai: Da, în România verile sunt foarte calde.
Masanobu: Da, acum văd. Apropo, în weekend-ul acesta este vreme frumoasă?
Mihai: Nu. Din păcate, plouă și este frig.
Masanobu: Ah, ce păcat!
Andreea: Nu-i nimic, săptămâna viitoare este însorit și cald.
Masanobu: Ce bine! Atunci să mergem la sfârșitul săptămânii viitoare la mare.
Mihai: Mergem toți!
Asia: Listen to the conversation one time slowly.
Masanobu: Ce cald este astăzi!
Mihai: Da, în România verile sunt foarte calde.
Masanobu: Da, acum văd. Apropo, în weekend-ul acesta este vreme frumoasă?
Mihai: Nu. Din păcate, plouă și este frig.
Masanobu: Ah, ce păcat!
Andreea: Nu-i nimic, săptămâna viitoare este însorit și cald.
Masanobu: Ce bine! Atunci să mergem la sfârșitul săptămânii viitoare la mare.
Mihai: Mergem toți!
Asia: Listen to the conversation with the English translation.
Masanobu: Today is so hot.
Mihai: Yes, summers in Romania are very hot.
Masanobu: Yes, I can see that now. By the way, will there be nice weather this coming weekend?
Mihai: No. Unfortunately, it will rain and it will be cold.
Masanobu: Oh, that's too bad!
Andreea: Don't worry, it will be sunny and warm next week.
Masanobu: That's great! Then let's go to the seaside next weekend.
Mihai: We're all going!
POST CONVERSATION BANTER
Asia: The conversation this time was all about the weather. What’s the climate like in Romania?
Mihai: It is temperate-continental, so that means that there are four distinct seasons that last around 3 months each.
Asia: How hot do the summers get?
Mihai: Very hot! Maximum temperatures can reach over 30 degrees Celsius or 86 degrees Fahrenheit.
Asia: And how cold are the winters?
Mihai: Very cold! Sometimes the daily temperatures don’t reach more than about -3 degrees Celsius or 26 degrees Fahrenheit for several months in a row.
Asia: That’s quite a difference! Do Romanians usually stay in the country during the summer?
Mihai: Older generations may have never travelled abroad due to the old restrictive communist regime, but younger generations love to travel.
Asia: Where are popular travel destinations?
Mihai: Places like the Carpathian Mountains or the Black Sea.
Asia: Do Romanians get long summer vacations?
Mihai: Yes, some are able to take long vacations from work so summer is a really popular time to travel.
Asia: Okay, now onto the vocab.
VOCAB LIST
Asia: Let’s take a look at the vocabulary from this lesson. The first word is...
Mihai: cald [natural native speed]
Asia: hot
Mihai: cald[slowly - broken down by syllable]
Mihai: cald [natural native speed]
Asia: Next we have...
Mihai: vară [natural native speed]
Asia: summer
Mihai: vară[slowly - broken down by syllable]
Mihai: vară [natural native speed]
Asia: Next we have...
Mihai: a ploua [natural native speed]
Asia: to rain
Mihai: a ploua[slowly - broken down by syllable]
Mihai: a ploua [natural native speed]
Asia: Next we have...
Mihai: păcat [natural native speed]
Asia: sin; shame
Mihai: păcat[slowly - broken down by syllable]
Mihai: păcat [natural native speed]
Asia: Next we have...
Mihai: nimic [natural native speed]
Asia: nothing
Mihai: nimic[slowly - broken down by syllable]
Mihai: nimic [natural native speed]
Asia: Next we have...
Mihai: vreme [natural native speed]
Asia: weather; times
Mihai: vreme[slowly - broken down by syllable]
Mihai: vreme [natural native speed]
Asia: And last...
Mihai: frumos [natural native speed]
Asia: beautiful
Mihai: frumos[slowly - broken down by syllable]
Mihai: frumos [natural native speed]
KEY VOCAB AND PHRASES
Asia: Let's have a closer look at the usage of some of the words and phrases from this lesson. The first word is...
Mihai: Ce păcat!
Asia: meaning "That's a shame!" What can you tell us about this phrase?
Mihai: Ce means "what." Păcat originally means "sin," but here it means “shame.”
Asia: You can use this to show regret that something didn’t go ahead as planned.
Mihai: Yes. Ce is used for emphasis.
Asia: Can you give us an example using this phrase?
Mihai: Sure. For example, you can say, Ce păcat că nu vedem filmul împreună!
Asia: ...which means "It's such a shame we're not seeing the movie together!"
Asia: Okay, what's the next word?
Mihai: Nu-i nimic.
Asia: meaning "Don't worry." What can you tell us about this phrase?
Mihai: Nu-i is the contracted form of nu e, which contains the contracted form of este, meaning "it is."
Asia: And what does the second word mean?
Mihai: Nimic means "nothing."
Asia: So it literally means “it is nothing.”
Mihai: Well technically it’s “it is not nothing,” as nu is used to negate a verb and Romanian has double negatives, unlike English. Just remember it as “don’t worry.”
Asia: Can you give us an example using this phrase?
Mihai: Sure. For example, you can say, Nu-i nimic, nu mă deranjează.
Asia: ...which means "Don't worry, I don't mind about it."
Asia: Okay, now onto the lesson focus.

Lesson focus

Asia: In this lesson, you'll learn about discussing the weather forecast.
Asia: When we say weather forecasts, we don’t mean the ones on TV, but more the informal type where you talk about weather with your friends.
Mihai: Yes. There are some verbs that will help you with this, but you must remember that we need to use the third person singular conjugation of the verb, as Romanian has no “it.”
Asia: An important verb when talking about the weather is, unfortunately, “to rain.”
Mihai: Right. In Romanian this is a ploua. As I said before, we need to use the third person singular form of this verb.
Asia: This is an impersonal verb, so there’s something a little special about it.
Mihai: Yes, we don’t use a pronoun for it. So it’s simply plouă.
Asia: This can mean both “it rains” and “it is raining.”
Mihai: Yes, Romanian only has one present tense. To say “it is fair,” we use este senin. Senin is an adjective.
Asia: Let’s hear an example sentence.
Mihai: Este senin în București.
Asia: “It is fair weather in Bucharest.”
Mihai: Now let’s move onto predicates.
Asia: These work very similarly in Romanian as they do in English, with the exception of the subject often being omitted in Romanian. So the sentence will be conjugated as if the pronoun is there, even when it isn’t.
Mihai: For example, mergem toți means “we all go,” even though the pronoun noi, meaning “we,” isn’t there.
Asia: Let’s hear another example.
Mihai: Vorbim cu tine.
Asia: This is “we speak to you,” but again the “we” is missing.
Mihai: That’s right.
Asia: Let’s finish this lesson by looking at imperatives.
Mihai: There are two types of imperatives - rough and soft. We’ll only look at soft imperatives here, as they are used more often and easier to learn.
Asia: We mentioned using “let’s” in lesson 1, but this is slightly different.
Mihai: Yes, this is an imperative mode and conjugates verbs. You conjugate the present tense of the verb into second person singular or plural and put să in front.
Asia: An example, please!
Mihai: Să fii bun!
Asia: “Be good!”
Mihai: Să exersați, da?
Asia: “Practice, okay?” That’s a good example to finish on!

Outro

Asia: Okay, that’s all for this lesson. Thank you for listening, everyone, and we’ll see you next time! Bye!
Mihai: La revedere.

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