Who's here

Sunday, September 5, 2010

Intermediate Romanian Lesson: Cum te cheama?

1. Pe mine mă cheamă ...

Salut. Pe mine mă cheamă Mircea. Pe tine cum te cheamă?
Pe mine mă cheamă Vasile.

Hello. My name is Mircea (literally: I am called Mircea). What is your name? (literally: What are you called? )
My name is Vasile.

Conjugation of the reflexive verb a se chema
pe mine mă cheamă (first person singular) - I am called
pe tine te cheamă (second person singular) - you are called
pe el îl cheamă/pe ea o cheamă (third person singular masculine/feminine) - he/she is called
pe noi ne cheamă (first person singular) - we are called
pe voi vă cheamă (first person singular) - you are called
pe ei îi cheamă/ pe ele le cheamă (first person singular) - they are called
The first part can sometimes be omitted without affecting the structure and the meaning of the sentence.
(pe mine) mă cheamă (first person singular)
(pe tine) te cheamă (second person singular)
(pe el) îl cheamă/pe ea o cheamă (third person singular masculine/feminine)
(pe noi) ne cheamă (first person plural)
(pe voi) vă cheamă (second person plural)
(pe ei) îi cheamă/ pe ele le cheamă (third person plural)

2. Numele + meu (tău etc.) + este

Salut. Numele meu este Mircea. Care este numele tău?
Numele meu este Vasile.

Hello. My name is Mircea. What is your name?
My name is Vasile.


nume – (noun, masculine) name
meu – (possessive pronoun, masculine) my
declension of possessive pronoun always corresponding in gender and number with the qualified noun
MASCULINE
numele meu (first person singular) - my name
numele tău (second person singular) - your name
numele său (generic term for both genders)/lui/ei - his/her name
numele nostru (first person plural) - our name (not names)
numele vostru (second person plural) - your names (not names)
numele lor (third person plural) - their name (not names)
FEMININE
casa mea (singular feminine) – my house
casa ta – your house
casa sa (generic term for both genders)/lui/ei – his/her house
casa noastră – our house
casa voastră – your house
casa lor – their house
You noticed that the possessive pronoun is placed after the noun it qualifies, unlike English where the possessive adjective is prepositioned. Examples:
Romanian - Casa mea este construită din lemn.
English - My house is made out of wood.

3. Polite form of the personal pronouns: dumneavoastră, dumnealui, dumneaei, dânsul, dânsa

Dumneavoastră cine sunteţi (old spelling: sînteţi)?
or
Care este numele dumneavostră?
And who are you? (And who might you be?)
or
What is your name?

Dumneavoastră replaces tu and voi when when one addresses people who are older than the speaker, senior in rank or strangers. Dumneavoastră will, as a rule of thumb, be used with the second person plural form, even if it replaces the
form of tu. Dumneavoastră can be abbreviated to dvs or dv in writing.
Dumneavoastră has respective forms for the third person singular and plural:
dumnealui/ dumneaei (third person singular masculine/feminine)
dumnealor (third person plural form for both feminine and masculine)
Another polite variant of the personal pronoun is dânsul, the dumnealui forms can also be used to refer to a third party in a respectful way.

No comments:

Post a Comment