Born in 1882 in the capital city of Oltenia, Nicolae Titulescu is undoubtedly that region’s most internationally influential native. The only twice-elected President of the League of Nations, he was the Romanian diplomat whom famous newspapers like British The Times and French Le Temps reverently commended for his “energy, devotion and skill” as a “brilliant defender of his country’s cause”, served with “unfailing distinction”, as well as for his “new conception of the societ

When it comes to phrases and idioms based on body parts, one such body part is especially prolific, the key word in many expressions: the eye. The essential organ of sight, which has accumulated impressive symbolic meanings especially in religion and spirituality, is called ochi in Romanian, it comes from Latin oc(u)lus and has generated around thirty phrases and idioms. Interestingly, it is also the base word in noun compounds with names of animals, referring to different ki

Continuing the series of articles about phrases based on body parts, which are as numerous in Romanian as they are in English, let’s have a look in this post at expressions with “mână”. Coming from Latin manus, Romanian “mână” means “hand”, it can refer to either the palm, the forearm or the whole arm, and its plural is “mâini”. “Mână” per se doesn’t have many secondary meanings, and all of the phrases reviewed below are based on its first, literal meaning, i.e. “hand”. Here

Just like in English, names of body parts generate in Romanian numerous phrases, idioms and even proverbs which are quite common in everyday speech. “Cap” is just such a prolific word. Originating from the Latin noun caput, the word’s main meaning is “head”, while some of its secondary meanings include “mind” and “leader”. Consequently, most of the phrases based on cap can be grouped around one of those meanings. Let’s review the most frequent of them, with some minimal conte

To a nation where people wish each other things on a wildly wide range of occasions, from having a haircut to getting down to work or wearing new shoes, the Christmas and New Year wishes are highly important. Whether made over the phone, in a text message, by email or handwritten in a classical Christmas card, the winter holidays wishes go in different tones and styles. Let’s review some of them. 1) Classical & common Standard wishes necessarily include a reference to good he

When talking about Hungarian ethnics in Romania, one encounters a problem of scope and of historical positioning. Most of Romania’s Hungarian ethnics come from Transylvania, where Hungarian tribes arrived from the east and settled in the 9th century, gradually organising the land into administrative units which in the 12th century came to be part of the Kingdom of Hungary. Transylvania was then, for centuries, up until the Great Union we are celebrating this year, either part

100 years of Romania. What Romanians have done for their country this past century in areas ranging from the humanities to science and sports has drawn a great deal of attention, commentary and analysis. But what non-Romanians have done for the country in this century of “Greater Romania” may tend to be overlooked or regarded as occasional foreign input. This post, while unable to comprise all of the non-Romanian contribution to the country’s development over the last 100 yea

1. Can you sum up in a paragraph how you’ve come to be a teacher? I think our childhood experiences influence a lot our future choice of profession. I first experienced being a teacher when I was about 8, and my father and his friend were my first students. With a jacket on my shoulders and my mother’s high heels, I was playing the “school game”, testing the two. Twelve years later, I was on my summer holiday after finishing my first year at the University of Bucharest, and I

Today, whether you are an expat professional, a local office worker or a migrant un/skilled worker, you are expected to know (a bit of) a foreign language. Especially in the European Union, where linguistic competence and multilingualism are Union policy (in, for instance, the Europe 2020 Programme), lifelong learners had better be actively engaged in a language learning process. But should that learning be formal (e.g. post/graduate courses), non-formal (e.g. language centre

How many senses are there? Realists would say that five, of course: sight, hearing, touch, smell and taste. Believers in the paranormal maintain that there’s a sixth and even a seventh sense. And how about, practical people might ask, common sense or the sense of humour? Natural and supernatural considerations aside, at the core of such debates lies a word which is as versatile in English as it is in Romanian: sense – in Romanian, simţ. Depending on the noun or adjective it c

Recent language textbooks go beyond grammar and vocabulary, the regulars of standardised language learning, to encompass areas of language which pertain to pragmatics. Pragmatics is a branch of linguistics which has to do with language in context, in other words it looks at words from the point of view of their situational or contextual functions. For example, “I do” in the context of a wedding ceremony means something specific, different from “I do” in a short dialogue about

Words can be fascinating little gems. Some, because of how they sound - for example, lalelele, “the tulips”. Some others, because of their meaning or etymology, or the way in which their meaning departs from (or relates back to) their origin. For example, Romanian anapoda, meaning “wrongly”, “in a disorganised way”, comes from Greek ana-, “back” or “again”, plus pous, “foot”. Therefore, it might literally mean “(stepping) with the same foot again” or perhaps “stepping backwar

Among the trending topics recently popularised in glossy magazines and in the world of publishing there are two emotions: hygge, marketed as “the secret of Danish happiness”, a sensation of wellbeing combining a sense of comfort, relaxation and freedom [1]; and sisu, a concept which “identifies the Finnish people”, approximated as boldness, grit and perseverance in the face of adversity [2]. While the two feelings are interesting and worthwhile in themselves, what catches the

Those of you who are naturally inclined to read a restaurant menu not only for nutritional purposes but also to pick on typos, misspellings and funny mistranslations [1] are probably used to seeing entries like “ciorbă de văcuţă” and “mămăliguţă cu brânză”, as in Meniu 2 in the picture. Nothing really wrong with those, but they do make you wonder a bit: both “văcuţă” and “mămăliguţă” are based on vacă (cow) and mămăligă (polenta), to which the diminutive suffix -uţă was added

How long have Romanians done sports? That can be answered highly accurately: not as long as the Greeks. For we didn’t invent the Olympic Games. We do, however, have a traditional national sport more often than not known as oină: it’s similar to baseball and it was first historically recorded in 1364 as being popular in old Wallachia; for a while, it became national policy enforced by the 1898 Education Reform, when the Ministry of Education made oină compulsory for physical e

It probably takes comedian Hugh Laurie’s straight face to be able to announce serenely, “This lovely summer we warmly recommend that you go to the cemetery.” The Merry Cemetery. “Downtown” the village of Săpânţa, a little settlement perched up north in Maramureş County, close to Romania’s border with Ukraine, the Merry Cemetery is final home to around 800 deceased villagers, and a UNESCO heritage site which has made it repeatedly in the top 10 of world’s best funerary destina

Once upon a time, Romanians put pen to paper... To be more specific, it was 1521 when the first known piece of writing in Romanian (with Cyrillic letters) was produced. It was a letter from Wallachian [1] boyar Neacşu Lupu, a resident of Câmpulung, to the mayor of today’s city of Braşov, “warning him of an imminent attack” of the Ottomans on Transylvania. [2] The text was no fiction, its author – not a professional writer. Indeed, over the following two centuries most of the

Each summer, International House Bucharest invites you on a journey in the world of foreign languages. Language Travel is an intensive summer training (English, German and Romanian for foreigners), which is organized every year in July, August and September. Each module lasts 2 weeks, 4 sessions a week, 2 hours each, Monday to Thursday, from 18:00 to 20:00. The courses will take place in one of our locations in Bucharest: 93-95 Lânăriei, 1st floor, sector 4 or 12 Postelniculu

1. Can you sum up how you came to be a teacher of Romanian? I became a teacher in 2000. I’m not sure that’s what I wanted to be long-term, as I thought it was a bit limiting: you see, I love travelling, changes, in short, being on the move. I used to work in the state education system for a few years, and didn’t start collaborating with International House Bucharest until 2006, only to find out that I can have it all, and that being a teacher does not limit me, but opens up n

Weekend holidaymakers and locals strolling on Bucharest’s Calea Victoriei on 1 April 2018 experienced the thrill of losing their way right into turbulent 1945 Romania. Streams of angered workers in navy overalls, suburban housewives with worried eyes under their grey scarves, young intellectual rebels sporting the ringlet curls of the trendy ‘40s, and bourgeois men in smartly tailored three-piece suits – all, swelling into the Palace Square. For handsome 24-year-old King Mich