Learn about augmentatives in Romanian
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Intro |
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| Antoni: What are augmentatives and how are they formed in Romanian? |
| Anna: And are they commonly used? |
| Antoni: At RomanianPod101.com, we hear these questions often. In the following situation, Mark Lee and Bianca Balan are walking past a housing development. Mark says, |
| "I would like a big house." |
| Mark Lee: Mi-ar plăcea un căsoi. |
| Dialogue |
| Mark Lee: Mi-ar plăcea un căsoi. |
| Bianca Bălan: Prefer casele mici. |
| Antoni: Once more with the English translation. |
| Mark Lee: Mi-ar plăcea un căsoi. |
| Antoni: "I would like a big house." |
| Bianca Bălan: Prefer casele mici. |
| Antoni: "I prefer small houses." |
Lesson focus |
| Antoni: In the dialogue, Mark is saying that he would like a "big house." He is using the noun |
| Anna: căsoi. |
| Antoni: This word is based on the root word |
| Anna: casă |
| Antoni: and, in order to indicate an increase in size, Mark attached the suffix |
| Anna: -oi |
| Antoni: to the end of the root word. The suffix that Mark used is what is known as an augmentative. Augmentatives, and how commonly they are used, are what we will be discussing in this lesson. |
| So, what is an augmentative exactly? Well, what Mark did was he used the augmentative to indicate an increase in size and this is the function of augmentatives—they intensify the word that they modify. Often, this "intensification" will denote an increase in size, but it can denote an increase in other qualities as well. Usually, the increase or intensification is of a positive nature. |
| Antoni: The Romanian word for "augmentative" is: |
| Anna: augmentativ. |
| Antoni: Let's listen to the first part of the dialogue one more time and after that we will discuss some more examples of augmentatives in Romanian. |
| [Recall 1] |
| Antoni: Let's take a closer look at the dialogue. |
| Do you remember how Mark Lee says "I would like a big house?" |
| (pause 4 seconds) |
| Anna as Mark Lee: Mi-ar plăcea un căsoi. |
| Antoni: As mentioned earlier, what Mark did here is he used the suffix |
| Anna: -oi |
| Antoni: to augment the word for "house" and form a new word meaning "big house." |
| Antoni: Let's look at another word that we can modify using the same suffix. The Romanian word for "rock" is |
| Anna: piatră |
| Antoni: and, if we add the suffix to it, we can then form the word for "big rock," which is: |
| Anna: pietroi. |
| Antoni: Here's another example of how this suffix can augment a word. We'll use the Romanian word for "boy," which is |
| Anna: băiat |
| Antoni: and then add the suffix to it, thereby forming the word for "big boy" or |
| Anna: băiețoi. |
| Antoni: This particular suffix is one of the most common augmentative suffixes in Romanian. Here are another three commonly-used augmentative suffixes. |
| Anna: -an, [pause] -andru, [pause] -oaie |
| Antoni: We'll look at some examples of these after briefly reviewing what we have learned thus far. |
| [Summary] |
| Antoni: In this lesson, so far, you have learned that augmentatives are elements of language that convey an intensification of the meaning of a root word. This augmentation might indicate an increase in size, depth, or in a number of other qualities or aspects. We looked at four of the most commonly-used augmentative suffixes in Romanian, which are: |
| Anna:-an, [pause] -andru, [pause] -oaie, [pause], and -oi. |
| Antoni: Next we'll look at a few more examples of how these suffixes are used. Let's start with the Romanian word for "fat," which is |
| Anna: gras. |
| Antoni: By adding the suffix |
| Anna: -an, |
| Antoni: it turns into "very fat man:" |
| Anna: grăsan. |
| Antoni: As mentioned before, this suffix is one of the more common suffixes in Romanian. We can also use it to change the word |
| Anna: bogat |
| Antoni: meaning "rich," into a new word that means "very rich person." It sounds like this: |
| Anna: bogătan. |
| Antoni: This word can also be used as an adjective meaning "wealthy." |
| Let's now look at another augmentative suffix. This one does not have as many derivations as the others, but it is still useful to know. It sounds like this: |
| Anna: -andru |
| Antoni: and it is sometimes attached to the word |
| Anna: copil |
| Antoni: which means "child." The resulting word, after attachment, is |
| Anna: copilandru |
| Antoni: which means "older child." Next, let's talk about the suffix |
| Anna: -oaie. |
| Antoni: As our starting point, we'll use the Romanian word for "basin" or "bowl," which is |
| Anna: strachină |
| Antoni: and then, by adding the suffix, we'll form the augmentative "huge bowl:" |
| Anna: străchinoaie. |
| Antoni: And, with that, you now know all of the most common augmentative suffixes in Romanian. |
| Expansion/Contrast (Optional) |
| Antoni: Something that must still be mentioned is the fact that all of the suffixes we have mentioned can be attached to nouns, in order to make augmentatives. With the exception of |
| Anna: -andru, |
| Antoni: they can furthermore be attached to adjectives so as to form an augmentative word. Earlier in the lesson, we also formed the masculine augmentative, meaning "big house," which was |
| Anna: căsoi |
| Antoni: We did this by adding the suffix |
| Anna: -oi |
| Antoni: to the Romanian word for "house," which is |
| Anna: casă. |
| Antoni: The resulting augmentative was a masculine noun, but there is also a feminine version of this augmentative suffix. We've already mentioned it in passing. The suffixes |
| Anna: -oi |
| Antoni: and |
| Anna: -oaie |
| Antoni: are the masculine and feminine forms, respectively, of the same suffix. The feminine augmentative would then be |
| Anna: căsoaie. |
| Antoni: Another masculine and feminine pairing of augmentative suffixes is |
| Anna: -an |
| Antoni: and |
| Anna: -ană. |
| Antoni: Previously, we talked about the masculine augmentative meaning "fat man," which was |
| Anna: grăsan. |
| Antoni: The feminine counterpart of this, meaning "fat lady," is |
| Anna: grăsană. |
| Antoni: Please keep in mind that, just like the word for "fat man," this word is considered an insult, so it's best to avoid using it. |
| Antoni: Let's review. Respond to the prompts by speaking aloud. Then, repeat after the native speaker, focusing on pronunciation. |
| Do you remember how Mark Lee says, "I would like a big house?" |
| [Beep. Pause 5 seconds.] |
| Anna as Mark Lee: Mi-ar plăcea un căsoi. |
| Antoni: Listen again and repeat. |
| Anna as Mark Lee: Mi-ar plăcea un căsoi. |
| [Beep. Pause 5 seconds.] |
| Anna as Mark Lee: Mi-ar plăcea un căsoi. |
| Antoni: And do you remember how Bianca Balan says "I prefer small houses?" |
| [Beep. Pause 5 seconds.] |
| Anna as Bianca Balan: Prefer casele mici. |
| Antoni: Listen again and repeat. |
| Anna as Bianca Balan: Prefer casele mici. |
| [Beep. Pause 5 seconds.] |
| Anna as Bianca Balan: Prefer casele mici. |
| Cultural Insight/Expansion (Optional) |
| Antoni: In the dialogue for today's lesson, Mark used a simple adjective instead of a suffix, and it must be pointed out that this is the most common way to augment another word in Romanian. The augmentative suffixes are useful, but native speakers will often forgo them in favor of a simple adjective. A possible reason for this is that there are only a limited number of derivations for each of the augmentative suffixes. The suffix |
| Anna: -andru |
| Antoni: only has four derivations, while the suffixes |
| Anna: -an |
| Antoni: and |
| Anna: -oi |
| Antoni: each have seventy-four derivations. The last of the four suffixes– |
| Anna: -oaie |
| Antoni: has twenty-six derivations. All in all, those are not a lot of derivations, which might explain why they are not used that often, and adjectives are often preferred. |
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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