Learn about some common noun suffixes in Romanian
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Intro |
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| Antoni: What are some noun suffixes in Romanian? |
| Anna: And why are they useful to know? |
| Antoni: At RomanianPod101.com, we hear these questions often. Imagine the following situation: the Lee family is visiting their neighbors for the first time. Mark Lee says, |
| "Your house is so nice." |
| Mark Lee: Locuința ta este așa drăguță. |
| Dialogue |
| Mark Lee: Locuința ta este așa drăguță. |
| Ilie Iordache: Mulțumesc. |
| Antoni: Once more with the English translation. |
| Mark Lee: Locuința ta este așa drăguță. |
| Antoni: "Your house is so nice." |
| Ilie Iordache: Mulțumesc. |
| Antoni: "Thank you." |
Lesson focus |
| Antoni: In this lesson, we are going to look at noun suffixes in Romanian, and how adding a suffix changes a noun stem into a whole new word. Before we continue, let's refresh what we know about how words are formed. In Romanian, each word has a stem, as well as a prefix or a suffix, and sometimes both. In addition to this, Romanian is an inflected language, which means that the forms or endings of some words will change depending on how they are used in a sentence. Let's see how this applies to our earlier dialogue between Mark Lee and Ilie Iordache. |
| [Recall 1] |
| Antoni: Do you remember how Mark Lee says "Your house is so nice.?" |
| (pause 4 seconds) |
| Anna as Mark Lee: Locuința ta este așa drăguță. |
| Antoni: Now, let's focus on the noun, |
| Anna: locuința, |
| Antoni: meaning "home." In this word, the smallest unit of meaning is |
| Anna: loc, |
| Antoni: which translates as "place" or "location." When we talk in these terms, we are thinking of a point of interest on a map, rather than someone's home, but when we add the suffix, |
| Anna: -ință, |
| Antoni: to form the Romanian word for "home," which is |
| Anna: locuința, |
| Antoni: we understand that it is a place that has a specific, concrete state, namely Ilie Iordache's home. |
| Suffixes can also change nouns into adjectives. To see how this works, let's turn to the word, "nice," in the sentence "Your house is so nice." In Romanian, the adjective "nice" is |
| Anna: drăguță. |
| Antoni: In this word, the stem is the Romanian word for "dear," which is |
| Anna: drag, |
| Antoni: which corresponds, semantically, with the term "affection" in English. By adding the suffix, which in this case is |
| Anna: -uț, |
| Antoni: the word "dear" changes into the adjective, "nice." In Romanian, as we mentioned earlier, the forms or endings of some words will change depending on how they are used in a sentence. In our dialogue example, the Romanian noun for "home," which is |
| Anna: locuința, |
| Antoni: ends in "-a," like the word sofa. In Romanian, nouns have a gender, and those that end in "-a" are feminine. Because of this, the Romanian adjective for "nice," which is |
| Anna: drăguț, |
| Antoni: also adopts the feminine gender with the addition of the suffix, |
| Anna: -ă. |
| Antoni: This is so that it agrees with the noun that it is describing. In linguistic terms, we say that the inflection of the Romanian word for "nice" has changed. We will discuss this aspect of the Romanian language later in this lesson. Now that you know what noun suffixes do, let's find a couple more examples of how they work in everyday Romanian conversations. |
| For our first example, let's look at the sentence, "The apples taste sweet.," which in Romanian is, |
| Anna: Merele au gust dulce. |
| Antoni: Here, we add the noun suffix, |
| Anna: -le, |
| Antoni: which indicates that we are talking about "the apples" rather than "apple," which, in its singular form is, |
| Anna: mărul. |
| Antoni: Apart from indicating the singular or plural of a noun, noun suffixes can also indicate gender, like when someone says, "My uncle is a math teacher." In Romanian, the sentence is |
| Anna: Unchiul meu e profesor de matematică. |
| Antoni: The Romanian word for "teacher" is |
| Anna: profesor, |
| Antoni: which ends in a consonant. In Romanian, nouns that end in a consonant are almost always masculine. Let's now change the sentence to "My aunt is a maths teacher." to see how the form of the word, "teacher," changes to match the subject of the sentence— "my aunt." In this case, the sentence would be |
| Anna: Mătușa mea e profesoară de matematică. |
| Antoni: The form of the Romanian word for "teacher" changes to |
| Anna: profesoară, |
| Antoni: with the addition of the suffix, |
| Anna: -oară. |
| Antoni: Before we return to our lesson dialogue, let's look at one more way noun suffixes are used in Romanian. Sometimes, especially when we speak to those who are close to us, we say things with affection and we use terms of endearment. Noun suffixes help us form these terms of endearment, known as diminutives. When speaking to someone you don't know well, you can say, |
| Anna: Dă-mi mâna, |
| Antoni: which is, "give me your hand," but if you were speaking to your partner, you might prefer to say |
| Anna: Dă-mi mânuţa, |
| Antoni: which translates to "Give me your little hand." This expression communicates your affection for the person. |
| [Recall 2] |
| Antoni: Now, let's return to the second part of our dialogue. Do you remember how Ilie Iordache said "Thank you?" |
| (pause 4 seconds) |
| Anna as Ilie Iordache: Mulțumesc. |
| Antoni: Since the Lee family are visiting their neighbors for the first time, a degree of formality is required. In their conversation, Ilie Iordache says thank you in the formal way, which is |
| Anna: Mulțumesc. |
| Antoni: If they were already acquainted and had become friends, Ilie Iordache would have responded to Mark Lee's compliment by using the informal way of saying thank you, which is |
| Anna: Mersi. |
| [Summary] |
| Antoni: In this lesson, we learned how certain suffixes change noun stems into whole new words, such as adjectives and diminutives, and also denote the gender and number of nouns. |
| Expansion/Contrast |
| Antoni: In Romania, politeness is very important in conversation, especially when addressing someone you are meeting for the first time, or when initiating a business transaction. For this reason, you would always address someone by their title and their surname in those kinds of situations. Let's imagine that we're greeting our neighbor, Mr. Andreescu, by saying "good morning." In Romanian, it would be |
| Anna: Bună dimineața, domnule Andreescu. |
| Antoni: The noun suffix, which in this case is |
| Anna: -ule, |
| Antoni: indicates that we are greeting "Mr. Andreescu." If we wanted to greet Mrs. Andreescu instead, we would say |
| Anna: Bună dimineața, doamnă Andreescu. |
| Antoni: In this sentence, the suffix, |
| Anna: -ă, |
| Antoni: identifies the person spoken to as female. |
Outro |
| Antoni: Do you have any more questions? We're here to answer them! |
| Anna: La revedere. |
| Antoni: See you soon! |
| Credits: Anna (Romanian, Romania), Antoni (English, synthetic voice) |
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