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- Topic: Romanian >
- "Eu vorbesc limba engleză."
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Actually, "limba" is "the language." "limbă” would be ”language.” So, literally would be: I speak the English language.
Word for word it would be, but that wouldn't be the meaning. In Romanian it's very common to say 'limba + (name of language)' to talk about languages. And all languages are feminine. So: limba engleză, limba germană, limba franceză, limba arabă, limba rusă, etc. etc.
What about the word for Romanian? The question before this didn't use limba romană, it just said "romană".
You can say both. In fact, in Romanian you have three ways to say 'I speak Romanian': 'Vorbesc limba română', 'Vorbesc româna', and 'Vorbesc românește'. There you go, three for the price of one!
Although the last one - 'românește' - is actually an adverb and so translates gramatically as 'in a Romanian way' - so it can only be used after a verb like 'vorbesc' - you can't say 'îmi place românește', you have to say 'îmi place limba română'! (= I like Romanian)
In Moldova I think it must really depend on the person as it's such a political question. From what my partner (born in Chișinău) has told me, often it has been called 'limba moldoveneasca' (Moldovan language) - especially during Soviet times when it was often written in cyrillic script - though linguists generally don't see it as a distinct language because it's basically just Romanian with a changed name and a few Russian loan words in its dialectal use, and these days since the shift back to Latin script it's become officialised again as 'limba română'.
Thank you for explaining what "românește" means! What would a person from Republic of Moldova say? What about a person from Transylvania? Would they say "Vorbesc românește"?
The word limbă may have 2 meanings:
1. language
2. tongue
limbă (feminine noun, no article) = language/tongue
o limbă (indefinite article) = a language/a tongue --- limbi (plural) = languages/tongues
limba (definite article) = the language/the tongue --- limbile (plural, definite article) = the languages/the tongues
Ea vorbește limba română/Ea vorbește româna/Ea vorbește românește = She speaks Romanian
El vorbește mai multe limbi străine. = He speaks several (foreign) languages.
El și-a mușcat limba din greșeală = He accidentally bit his tongue
Expressions:
Ea are o limbă de aur = She had the gift of speaking beautifully, eloquently
Ea are limba ascuțită = She is malicious in everything she says
aur = gold
ascuțit = sharp
Ea vorbește limba română, limba spaniolă, limba italiană, limba latină, limba engleză, limba franceză, limba rusă, limba japoneză.....
Ea vorbește româna, spaniola, italiana, latina, engleza, franceza, rusa, japoneza....
Ea vorbește românește, (în) spaniolă, italienește, latinește, englezește, franțuzește, rusește, (în) japoneză.....
It's a regular verb (although Romanian has a few categories of regular verbs, of which this is one):
Eu (I) vorbesc Tu (You informal) vorbești El (He) vorbește Ea (She) vorbește Noi (We) vorbim Voi (You plural informal) vorbiți Dumneavoastră (You sing./pl. formal) vorbiți Ei vorbesc Ele vorbesc
Notice that the forms for 'Eu' and 'Ei/Ele' are the same. This rule works for all verbs in which the 'Eu' form ends in '-esc' (e.g. 'citesc' / 'amintesc').
According to Wikipedia, a complete conjugation table for Romanian regular verbs would contain up to 70 classes. XP
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romanian_verbs#Conjugation_groups
(I know this is a little late)
Here is a wonderful site that will help with every Romanian verb. Just type in any form of a Romanian verb (i.e. vorbesc, vorbim) and you will get a link to the verb and it's full conjugation: http://www.verbix.com/languages/romanian.shtml
This has helped me a lot; Spread the word!
p.s. I think the site works for many languages: http://www.verbix.com/languages/
Rene, mulțumesc! I am having a bit of trouble with the verb conjugations. Yet, I didn't have this problem with French and Portuguese (the latter being easy since I'm a native Spanish speaker) despite being part of the same language family.
infinitive: a vorbi 1st-person singular: (eu) vorbesc
I don't speak Romanian at all basically, so someone correct me if I'm wrong.
Is "Romanian" the only language you have different ways to say? Would it be a rule to use "limba" along with all other languages?
