Learn about semantic structure
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| INTRODUCTION |
| Dana: Hi everyone, and welcome back to RomanianPod101.com. This is Intermediate Season 1 Lesson 8 - Getting Intellectual in Romanian. Dana Here. |
| Mihai: Bună. I'm Mihai. |
| Dana: In this lesson, you’ll learn about semantic structure. The conversation takes place in a classroom. |
| Mihai: It's between Marcel, Simona, and Professor Petrescu. |
| Dana: The speakers are a teacher and students, therefore, they will speak formal Romanian. Okay, let's listen to the conversation. |
| DIALOGUE |
| Simona: Cum ziceam, față de ceilalți autori ai vremii, Durkheim s-a evidențiat prin perspectiva sa radicală. |
| Profesor Petrescu: În ce sens radicală? |
| Simona: În sensul în care s-a afirmat printre principalii arhitecți ai științei sociale moderne. Iar opera sa l-a consacrat. |
| Profesor Petrescu: Bun, dar tot nu ai explicat de ce numești perspectiva sa ca fiind una radicală. |
| Marcel: Mă scuzați, aș putea să vin eu cu un răspuns la această întrebare. Cred că este vorba despre lucrările sale curajoase precum cea privind suicidul în rândul populației religioase. |
| Profesor Petrescu: Da, cu asta pot fi de acord. Puteți, de asemenea, lega această afirmație cu originea autorului? |
| Simona: Desigur. Emile Durkheim este originar din provincia franceză Lorraine. Iar Franța era cunoscută în acele timpuri pentru manifestul său original pledând pentru libertate și egalitarism social. |
| Profesor Petrescu: Corect. Am putea spune că, față de ceilalți co-fondatori ai arhitecturii societății moderne, Marx și Weber, Durckheim este asociat și cu această față a francezului cu origini revoluționare. |
| Marcel: Da, însă ideile sale sunt pro-sociale. În sensul în care el promovează integritatea și coerența socială. |
| Simona: Dacă îmi permiteți... Societatea la care el visa, de fapt, viza exact acest deziderat socialist, în care putem cu adevărat vorbi de o conștiință colectivă. |
| Dana: Listen to the conversation with the English translation |
| Simona: As I was saying, compared to the other authors of the time, Durkheim stood out because of his radical perspective. |
| Professor Petrescu: What do you mean by radical? |
| Simona: In the sense of being one of the main architects of the modern social science. And his work consecrated him. |
| Professor Petrescu: Okay, but you still have not explained why you call his perspective a radical one. |
| Marcel: Excuse me, I could offer an answer to this question. I think it's about his courageous works, such as the ones referring to the large suicide rates among the religious people. |
| Professor Petrescu: Yes, with that I can agree. Can you also link this statement to the origin of the author? |
| Simona: Of course. Emile Durkheim came from the French province of Lorraine. And France was known in those times for its original manifesto pleading for freedom and social egalitarianism. |
| Professor Petrescu: That's correct. We could say that, compared to the other co-founders of the modern societal architecture, Marx and Weber, Durkheim is also associated with the face of a Frenchman having revolutionary origins. |
| Marcel: Yes, but his ideas are pro-social. In the sense that he promotes integrity and social coherence. |
| Simona: If I may ... The society he was seeing, in fact, was targeting exactly this socialist desideratum, one in which we can truly speak of a collective consciousness. |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| Dana: I am not a big fan of popular authors, so it was a bit hard to understand the dialogue this time. |
| Mihai: Then, what are you into the most? |
| Dana: Winter sports! And I believe it is also popular among Romanians, right? |
| Mihai: That’s right. If you visit Romania in the winter, you will be able to find the skating rinks are packed with people from early in the morning to midnight in some places. |
| Dana: That’s right. I heard that snowboarding is also getting popular too these days, right? |
| Mihai: Yes. It has become a trend in the last decade. Despite the fact that there aren’t many high peaks in Romania, many local snowboarders have had their first falls on mountains in Romanian ski resorts: Sinaia, Busteni, Azuga, Predeal, Poiana Brasov, Paltinis, Vatra Dornei, Cheia, and a few others. |
| Dana: Among them, where would you recommend to go and try winter sports in Romania? |
| Mihai: I will say… Balea Lac. It’s a special destination for snowboarders and skiers because the snow tracks are natural. |
| Dana: That’s good to know. Okay, now onto the vocab. |
| VOCAB LIST |
| Dana: Let’s take a look at the vocabulary from this lesson. The first word is... |
| Mihai: cum [natural native speed] |
| Dana: as |
| Mihai: cum [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Mihai: cum [natural native speed] |
| Dana: Next we have... |
| Mihai: sens [natural native speed] |
| Dana: meaning |
| Mihai: sens [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Mihai: sens [natural native speed] |
| Dana: Next we have... |
| Mihai: arhitect [natural native speed] |
| Dana: architect |
| Mihai: arhitect [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Mihai: arhitect [natural native speed] |
| Dana: Next we have... |
| Mihai: știință [natural native speed] |
| Dana: science |
| Mihai: știință [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Mihai: știință [natural native speed] |
| Dana: Next we have... |
| Mihai: operă [natural native speed] |
| Dana: work |
| Mihai: operă [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Mihai: operă [natural native speed] |
| Dana: Next we have... |
| Mihai: a consacra [natural native speed] |
| Dana: to consecrate |
| Mihai: a consacra [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Mihai: a consacra [natural native speed] |
| Dana: Next we have... |
| Mihai: a permite [natural native speed] |
| Dana: to allow |
| Mihai: a permite [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Mihai: a permite [natural native speed] |
| Dana: Next we have... |
| Mihai: afirmație [natural native speed] |
| Dana: statement |
| Mihai: afirmație [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Mihai: afirmație [natural native speed] |
| Dana: Next we have... |
| Mihai: a pleda [natural native speed] |
| Dana: to plead |
| Mihai: a pleda [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Mihai: a pleda [natural native speed] |
| Dana: And last... |
| Mihai: a visa [natural native speed] |
| Dana: to dream |
| Mihai: a visa [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Mihai: a visa [natural native speed] |
| KEY VOCAB AND PHRASES |
| Dana: Let's have a closer look at the usage of some of the words and phrases from this lesson. The first phrase is... |
| Mihai: cum ziceam |
| Dana: meaning "as I was saying." |
| Mihai: This is an expression composed of the conjunction cum meaning "as" and the verb a zice meaning "to say" in past indicative, past perfect tense. It literally translates to "as I was saying." |
| Dana: You can use it to connect speech content previously mentioned by you, emphasizing that what you will say next repeats a part of what was previously mentioned. |
| Mihai: You can use it in spoken Romanian only by the way. |
| Dana: Can you give us an example using this word? |
| Mihai: Sure. For example, you can say... Cum ziceam, nu mai putem merge la acel spectacol pentru că s-au dat toate locurile. |
| Dana: ... which means "As I was saying, we can not go to that show anymore because all the places are sold out." |
| Dana: Okay, what's the next phrase? |
| Mihai: Dacă îmi permiteți... |
| Dana: meaning "If I may..." |
| Mihai: This is a common polite expression composed of the conjunction dacă meaning "if." Then we have the personal pronoun first person singular in dative îmi meaning "to me" and the verb a permite meaning "to allow." |
| Dana: It literally translates as "If you allow to me" and means "If I may." You can use this polite expression when you want to intervene in a conversation or introduce a specific proposal to your interlocutor. |
| Mihai: But you can use it only in spoken Romanian, so make sure not to use in the written word. |
| Dana: What will be an example using this expression? |
| Mihai: Dacă îmi permiteți, aș vrea să vă povestesc cum s-au întâmplat de fapt lucrurile. |
| Dana: ... which means "If I may, I'd like to tell you how things really happened." |
| Dana: Okay, now onto the lesson focus. |
Lesson focus |
|---|
| Dana: In this lesson, you'll learn about semantic structure. First, let’s see how to use polysemantic words. A polysemantic word is a word that has the same form but can take multiple meanings within a sentence. |
| Mihai: Let’s use the word cap as an example. |
| Dana: It means "head" but can also mean: “extremity,” “peak,” “leader,” and “boss.” I think I can see some commonalities between the meanings. |
| Mihai: Right, it means something on the top, like someone’s head. Also, there is another word ochi. |
| Dana: It means "eye" but also “mesh,” “area,” “loop.” I think we can make some interesting sentences using these polysemantic words. |
| Mihai: Right. So I prepared some sentences for our listeners. I will give you a Romanian sentence using the word multiple times, but with different meanings. Guess what each word means. Here we go. Capul acestui clan purta pe capul său un fel de coroană făcută din paie colorate. |
| Dana: Did you get it listeners? Here, you use the word meaning "head", but to mean "leader" and "head." |
| Mihai: That’s right, so it meant "The leader of this clan wore on its head a kind of crown made of colorful straws." |
| Dana: Okay. You have one more sentence but this time with the word meaning "eye." |
| Mihai: Right. And here we go - Când am intrat în cameră, mi-a făcut cu ochiul și mi-a dăruit un buchet frumos de flori ochiul-boului. |
| Dana: Listeners, did you get it? The right translation is… "When I walked into the room, he winked at me and gave me a nice bouquet of ox-eye flowers." |
| Dana: Now, let’s see how to use homonyms and paronyms. Homonyms are words that have the same form and pronunciation but differ in meaning and origin. Can you give one example? |
| Mihai: Sure. I have copil. When you say copil it means "child." But when you say copii with a different intonation, it means "children." Also, you can say copii to mean "copies." |
| Dana: Interesting. There are various synonyms and antonyms in Romanian too. |
| Mihai: That’s right. For example, inimă and cord. These are synonyms and they mean "heart." |
| Dana: What are some examples of antonyms? |
| Mihai: Antonyms are words that have a contrary or opposing meaning to another word. You can find a lot of pairs meaning the opposite in Romanian, for example, cald and rece. |
| Dana: meaning "hot" and "cold." |
| Mihai: Also, you can add some prefixes to make a word have the opposite meaning. For example, tipic means "typical." But by adding the prefix a, you can make atipic meaning "atypical." |
| Dana: We have a lot more examples in our lesson notes, so make sure to check them out! |
Outro |
| Dana: 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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