Learn about exchanging foreign currency in Romania
Now Playing: Lesson Audio
Get a breakdown of the dialogue and translations instantly with the Premium line-by-line Audio. Sign up for your Free Lifetime Account Now and get 7 Days of Premium Access including this feature.
Get this lesson’s key vocab, their translations and pronunciations. Sign up for your Free Lifetime Account Now and get 7 Days of Premium Access including this feature.
Unlock Lesson Notes and Transcripts for every single lesson. Sign Up for a Free Lifetime Account and Get 7 Days of Premium Access.
| Romanian Survival Phrases. Season 2. Lesson 16: A Guide to Foreign Exchange in Romania |
| INTRODUCTION |
| Salut, and welcome to Romanian Survival Phrases, brought to you by RomanianPod101.com |
| This course is designed to equip you with the language skills and knowledge to enable you to get the most out of your visit to Romania. You'll be surprised at how far a little Romanian will go. |
| Now before we jump in, remember to stop by RomanianPod101.com. |
| There, you’ll find the accompanying PDF lesson notes and additional info in the post. If you stop by, be sure to leave us a comment. |
| Exchanging money in Romania is quite convenient. You can exchange money at airports, special money exchange kiosks, and banks, or withdraw money from an ATM. Rates applied when withdrawing money from an ATM are likely to be higher than when withdrawing directly from a bank. As a general rule, try to find one of the countless exchange offices. They are easy to find because Romanians use the English term “exchange”. The colors used for the exchange offices are yellow, black, and red. It’s impossible not to notice them! |
| BODY |
| First, let's review some previous phrases and patterns we've already covered. |
| In Romanian, “Is there an ATM near here?” is |
| Este un bancomat în apropiere? Pay attention on the intonation. You want to make it sound like a question, not a statement. |
| (slow) Es-te un ban-co-mat în a-pro-pi-e-re? |
| Este un bancomat în apropiere? |
| Now, to ask for a bank. We can just replace the word for ATM with the word for bank. “Is there a bank near here?” is |
| Este o bancă în apropiere? |
| (slow) Es-te o ban-că în a-pro-pi-e-re? |
| Este o bancă în apropiere? |
| It’s simple – as you may have noticed, we just replaced un bancomat with o bancă. |
| Let’s ask for an exchange office now. It’s very similar. You just need to insert the expression - casă de schimb valutar. |
| (slow) Ca-să de schimb va-lu-tar. |
| Casă de schimb valutar. |
| Let’s ask the question. |
| Este o casă de schimb valutar în apropiere? |
| (slow) Es-te o ca-să de schimb va-lu-tar în a-pro-pi-e-re? |
| Este o casă de schimb valutar în apropiere? |
| For times when there’s neither a bank nor an ATM, you can ask, "Where can I exchange currency?" |
| In Romanian, this is Unde pot schimba bani? |
| Let’s break it down: |
| Un-de pot schim-ba bani? |
| Once again: |
| Unde pot schimba bani? |
| The first word, unde, means “where.” |
| (slow) Un-de. |
| Unde. |
| Then we have pot schimba, an expression that is translated as “can exchange” |
| (slow) Pot schim-ba. |
| Pot schimba. |
| And at the end we have bani, which is the word for “money”. |
| (slow) Bani. |
| Bani. |
| All together, we have |
| Unde pot schimba bani? |
| Literally, this means “Where can (I) exchange money?” |
| When exchanging money in Romania, usually you’ll be asked Pe toţi? which is a very short question that means “All of it?” Use the numbers we learned in our previous lessons to say how much you want to exchange. |
| Let’s hear the question one more time. |
| (slow) Pe toţi? |
| Pe toţi? |
| Pe means “on” and toţi means “all”. |
| The literal translation “on all” sounds very unusual in English. If you want to exchange all the money, just say “yes” in Romanian, which is da. |
| In case you need smaller units, you can go to any shop, supermarket, exchange office, or gas station and ask Puteţi să schimbaţi această bancnotă vă rog? In English “Can you break this banknote please?” |
| Let’s break it down: |
| Pu-teţi să schim-baţi a-ceas-tă banc-no-tă vă rog? |
| Once more: |
| Puteţi să schimbaţi această bancnotă vă rog? |
| The first word puteţi is translated as “can you”. |
| (slow) Pu-teţi. |
| Puteţi. |
| Then we have să schimbaţi , which in our question means “to break”. The literal meaning of this verb is “to change”. |
| (slow) Să schim-baţi. |
| Să schimbaţi. |
| Next we have această, which means “this”. |
| (slow) A-ceas-tă. |
| Această. |
| After that we have bancnotă which means “banknote”. |
| (slow) Banc-no-tă. |
| Bancnotă. |
| And at the end as usual we have vă rog. |
| Here’s the question again: |
| Puteţi să schimbaţi această bancnotă vă rog? |
| The literal translation is “Can you change this banknote?” |
| Ask this when you have a big bill that you want to break. |
| REVIEW |
| Okay, to close out this lesson, we'd like you to practice what you've just learned. I'll provide you with the English equivalent of the phrase and you're responsible for saying it aloud. You have a few seconds before I give you the answer, so mult noroc , which means "Good luck!" in Romanian. |
| “Is there an ATM near here?” |
| (3 sec) Este un bancomat în apropiere? |
| (slow) Es-te un ban-co-mat în a-pro-pi-e-re? |
| Este un bancomat în apropiere? |
| “Is there a bank near here?” |
| (3 min) Este o bancă în apropiere? |
| (slow) Es-te o ban-că în a-pro-pi-e-re? |
| Este o bancă în apropiere? |
| “Is there an exchange office near here?” |
| (3 sec) Este o casă de schimb valutar în apropiere? |
| (slow) Es-te o ca-să de schimb va-lu-tar în a-pro-pi-e-re? |
| Este o casă de schimb valutar în apropiere? |
| "Where can I exchange currency?" |
| (3 sec) Unde pot schimba bani? |
| (slow) Un-de pot schim-ba bani? |
| Unde pot schimba bani? |
| “All of it?” |
| (3 sec)Pe toţi? |
| (slow) Pe toţi? |
| Pe toţi? |
| “Can you break this banknote please?” |
| (3 sec) Puteţi să schimbaţi această bancnotă vă rog? |
| (slow) Pu-teţi să schim-baţi a-ceas-tă banc-no-tă vă rog? |
| Puteţi să schimbaţi această bancnotă vă rog? |
Outro |
|---|
| All right, that's all for this lesson! |
| Remember to stop by RomanianPod101.com and pick up the accompanying PDF lesson notes. |
| If you stop by, be sure to leave us a comment. |
| Pa! |
Comments
Hide