Problem
How to I get around? How do I plan a hotel near a station or landmark? How do I remember names? How can I learn a few Romanians words fast?
Answers
Start with a map of the city and a map of underground stations.
Find a list of stations.
Underline or circle major place names or those which translate easily into English or another language you speak such as French.
List the words and add you own memory aids.
Romanian - English
1Mai - First of May
central - central (adjective)
c e n t r u - centre (noun)(I inserted spaces because spell checker rushes to help and change to alternative words)
centru comercial - commercial centre
de - of
eroii - heroes (add h in front of the Romanian word, say the English like a person who drops their H, think of ii as plural, the same as Malaysian and Indian languages which say something, a word, twice for plurals eg Malay for children is anak aka which is literally child-child
gara - train station (Why do I bother adding the word train? Because station could mean bus station and in New Zealand s h e e p station.)
lac - lake
h a r t a - map (sound like in other languages it might be cart or card)
noi - new (starts with the same letter N, only three letters in both words, most likely word in a place name)
Nord - north
P a r c - park
Patriei - fatherland (as in Latin pater for father, patrilineal - father's family tree line, patrician - father figure of city, Papa for father)
Piata - square (plaza)
Politehnica - Polytechnic
republica - republic
Revolutiei - Revolution
Romana - Roman (or Romanian)
Sud - south
S u d u l u i - south
v i c t o r i e i - victory
English - Romanian
central - central
centre / - centru
commercial centre - centru comercial (Romanian language simplifies the spelling which is phonetic, meaning the written word is always just like the sound - phone means sound - and the adjective comes afterwards, whereas in English the adjective is first)
fatherland - patriei
heroes - e r o i i
lake - lac
map - h a r t a (How can I remember this? Map of the heart of the city, slang dropping the last letter of 'of' - hart-a the city - h a r t a.)
May - Mai
new - noi
North - nord
of - de
republic - r e p u b l i c a
revolution - revolutiei
park - p a r c
polytechnic - politehnica
Roman / Romanian - Romana
south - s u d u l u i
square - p i a t a
victory - v i c t o r i e i
I can now recognise 14 Romanian words on station maps and city or country maps. How about you?
Story
I look at the train map. At first glance it is all just foreign words. Wikipedia points out that the lines are M and numbers (like British motorways which start with the first motorway, M1, running from London in the south to the north).
M1
The main M1 line is the circle line. (In London, England, the circle line is yellow but in Bucharest it is red.) How do I remember - stop you are in the centre! The central line links the Gare de Nord in the north (west) going clockwise via
I go back to the map of the Metro (in French) which in Romanian is spelled Metrou, just add 'u' on the end, 'you' are here in Romania.
Now I try to remember the position and colour of each line and the landmarks. To anybody living there, you do it so often that you remember without trying.
MI
The red circular line starts with Gara de Nord, the northern station. Next, going clockwise, a square or place or plaza, in Romanian, Piata Victoriei. Place or Square of Victory.
Continuing clockwise, let's work on it, we reach P i a t a M u n c i i - Work Square (or Labour Square - American spelling l a b o r).
How do you remember that it ends i e i and no e i e ? Think of it as having two bed posts with the word e in the middle like the word bed which has uprights at both ends. Alternatively think of it as ending with an i instead of a y, then add an e, than another i.
Victory, v i c t o r i e i, we are victorious at learning Romanian language and the lines of the metro, called m e t r o u. (Memory aid, the metro is called m e t r o u, that's true.
Pronunciation Guides
D u o l i n g o language learning for free website has symbols before many of the Romanian words. You can hear them so you can recognise them when they are spoken. You can r e p e a t them for practise. You can keep clicking on the symbol and repeat listening to the word or saying the word as many time as you like.
You Tube videos including learn numbers in three minutes:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tBPwwi6oI7E
Three big surprises for me were:
1 Many Romanian words drop that vowel they add on the ends of words.
2 They roll the letter r.
3 I've struggled with rolling the letter r in Italian on D u o l i n g o. But listening to the Youtube video on Romanian I found myself automatically imitating the rolled r.
Tips
http://romaniatourism.com/maps/bucharest/subway_map.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Bucharest_metro_stations
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer,a author and speaker. Please share links to my posts.
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