15 Comments
The initial "ei" is the genitive/dative form of the third person singular feminine personal pronoun.
This is a very common way to express sensations in Romanian:
Mie îmi este frig. - I'm cold.
Ție îți este foame. - You are hungry.
Ei/Lui îi este rușine. - She/He is ashamed.
Nouă ne este sete. - We are thirsty.
Vouă vă este scârbă. - You are disgusted.
Lor le este rău. - They are sick.
Sorry to be dense but I still don't get it. "Ei (she) looks to be the subject of the sentence and therefore nominative. Why use a dative pronoun here? Thanks potestasity.
Actually, the subject of this sentence is the noun "frică" and "ei" is an indirect object. This is one of the situations where the subject goes after the verb; it's a really a confusing structure, but it is very common.
Thanks potesasity. This is especially difficult for me. In English, "afraid (frică) is an adjective, not a noun.
The Romanian adjective that properly translates "afraid" is "înfricoșată" and indeed you can say:
Ea este înfricoșată de ele.
Which is a perfect word-for-word correspondence with English. You can do that with pretty much every sensation. I gave examples here.
If you find this more comfortable because it matches English grammar, feel free to use it, but there's two problems:
1. Using the noun + dative of pronouns is by far more common and more natural; a native would probably use that.
2. The adjective needed is not very intuitive. (e.g. frică - înfricoșat; somn - somnoros) and similar forms change meaning: "fricos" expresses a general character trait, "fearful".
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Thanks for this discussion! This also explains why the verbs seem not to be conjugated for the pronouns. That was confusing me as well.
Thank you! I didn't see that "ei" could both mean "they" and the stressed feminine genitive/dative pronoun.
It's confusing indeed. Romanian personal pronouns is a sea of "e*"s... I often give the wrong answer when I'm a little tired ( I also mix up "ne" and "nu" way too often) :/ Dar îmi place încă limba această :)
Ei? Thta is supposed to be for female "them" or can sb explain this grama structure
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What is happening in this set of lessons? Here is a supposedly Romanian sentence to be translated into English: "No him It is fear from he" Is this some form of "Romglais" .
I am amazed by the sugestive sentences this app gives about romania. Like.. 3 question ago i got past a questiom about corruption which is very common in romania. I feel bad about the people that are going to learn this language with this exercises. Romania is a beautiful country, yea it has some major defects but that s only because of the people.. So please don t continue to put these kind of sentences or question because it s not fair and ok.
