So we are in day #2, as I controlling the progress I still have problem with phonetics, I still make mistakes when reading the words. Diphthongs and triphthongs are really made me confused. It will take a time took get used to it. That’s why I have revised the lesson in day #1 and understand lots of things better. For the first time when I don’t understand something I just remember it. Then it comes to usage or when you see more examples we can understand easily.
I learned new words like ‘aici’ and ‘acolo’. These are ‘here’ and ‘there’. I also learned conjunctions like “iar” and ‘sau’, these are translated to ‘and’ and ‘or’. Also learned some examples. After that, I have learned some interrogative words like “who”, “what”, “where … from”, ‘where’, ‘how long’, and ‘how many’. These are translated into “Cine”, “Ce”, “de unde”, ‘unde’, ‘de când’ and [“Câți” for masculine and ‘Câte’ for feminine]. Learned asking questions and using new words. For example:
- “- Cine este el?, — El este Anerg” -> “- Who is he?, — He is Anerg”
- “- Ce este aici?, Aici este bancă” -> If translated directly “What is here?, This is bank”, meaning is “What is the place here?, — This place is a bank”, here “Ce” is used as “what” but depending on context it changes, if we ask “ce” to a person, it asks his/her profession.
- ‘- Ce este el?, — E doctorand’ -> If translated directly “- What is he?, — He is a PhD” but the actual meaning “- What is his profession?, — He is a PhD.”
“CE + substantiv” — the form of making questions.
- “- Câți (studenți) sunt din Anglia?, — Nouă (doctoranzi) sunt din Anglia” -> “- How many (students) are from Great Britain?, — 9 (students) are from Great Britain.”
As I already said there are genders of words; for “How many”, the word also has gender, the above is the masculine form, so comes the feminine form
- “- Câte eleve sunt aici?, — Aici e o elevă” -> “How many students [for schools] are here?, — One student is here.”
So these are about interrogative words. So at the end of day we have learned asking questions. Hurrey, we did something). I think I will ask money in the street :-).
I also learned a lot about plural and singular nouns. So, as you guessed, for genders, the plural form of nouns also changes. It is the weirdest thing for me. Even in Russian, there is not this kind of complicated grammar. But in Romanian, we have plural forms for masculine, feminine, and neuter gender nouns. Imagine, to remember one word, we have to remember an extra +5 words.
Also, let’s dive into grammar: the singular nouns of singular form that end with consonant letters, in the plural form, have +I added after. “word + ends with consonant” -> “word + i”
So, the words in singular form in the feminine gender have some different structure. Singular form -> Plural form “word + ă” -> “word + e”
Also, there are some words that break the above grammar and add another rule.
- -t + i = — ți
- -d + i = — zi
- st + i = — ști
I have learned words and revised the lesson from day #1. So, I have used a different technique when remembering words, and it looks so easy for me. At first, I just took a look at words and their meanings using a translator, mostly relying on Google Image Translator. After that, I started comparing the words that already looked familiar to me, meaning the words that sounded like in my mother languages. This made it easy for me to remember them, but it’s not enough for speaking and reading.
So, I also took a traditional approach. I wrote the words down in a notebook along with their meanings. After that, I closed one side of the translation, started from the meaning, and said it loudly from top to bottom. Then, from bottom to top, and randomly asked myself the word meanings. I did this because when we remember something, our brain makes connections with other elements that are near to it, and we need to break those connections. When you see one word from the list, you can guess the next one. This is how our brain works it makes connection. We have to break these connections of words with the notebook and make it individual or standalone with examples that are not in the notebook we wrote down.
So, connect the words that already exist and are up in your mind or connect them with your memories. In that way, we can learn and remember faster. This technique is really useful.
Beside that there are lots of things to learn. After the end of the second day, I feel a bit confused. Because I thought I learned and felt a bit confident, but I am forgetting, not understanding, or mixing up. This is normal when learning new things. We can get used to it over time when we use the words more in our daily life and overcome this issue. So don’t be shy, use the language, make mistakes, correct them, and again make mistakes. In that way, we will learn, and in the end, we will feel confident.
So, it was day #2. Thanks a lot for being with me. I appreciate your time and attention. See you on day 3.
