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- Topic: Romanian >
- "o fată"
23 Comments
1635
Etymology
From Latin fēta, feminine of fētus.
Pronunciation
IPA: [ˈfa.tə]
Noun
fată f (plural fete)
1) girl
2 daughter
From Wiktionary
Romanian always has the weirdest etymology. I was racking my brain - Niña? No. Menina? Not close. Ragazza? Definitely not. Fille? Maybe?
Turns out it comes from fetus because why not.
Besides the fact that they're all indefinite articles, there is no other connection between the Romanian "un/o" and the English "an/a". They simply refer to different things. In Romanian, "un" and "o" are the indefinite articles for masculine and feminine nouns, respectively. In English, nouns don't have gender, and the use of "an" vs "a" as the indefinite article for a noun depends on whether the pronunciation of that noun starts with a vowel sound or not. (PS: Do not confuse vowels with vowel sounds!)
- 1543
(Native Romanian here) @Lurch is right. 'Un' followed by a noun in the singular form can also be neuter, not just masculine :-)
- 744
Well not really, since we don't have separate articles for neuter. Neuter in Romanian means that a word is masculine when singular and feminine when plural, so that's why. This is pretty confusing and inexact for a person who wants to study the language though
You really are? Can you help duo to put more explanation into later "circles"? : ) there are missing and I am confused many times why is this or that in some sentences : ) Cheers.
- 744
I would've loved to contribute to the courses, but these ignorants don't give a damn about me...
"O " is always used for feminine words ... it is not similar to english where you say "a"girl , "a "boy ... and "un" it is not like "an" in english and its always used for masculine eg. "un" baiat = a boy
- 1506
Technically "fată" by itself has no article.
It's not quiiite 1-to-1 with English, but essentially: "fată" = "girl", "o fată" = "a girl", and "fata" = "the girl".
There is only one article there 'fatã' means girl. The article would have been contained by the word only if the word was spelled without the tilde like so ’fata' which basically translates into 'the girl'
i believe u shouldnt highlight both words they need to guess or they arent going to learn anything
When learning new words I like to see all the possible translations for that word. Sometimes it gives you insight into how the word is used, or potential confusion you might have down the road.
You learn the word by clicking on the hint, then you can test yourself and they don't give any hints. Guessing doesn't do anything but frustrate learners.
why is it "un vin" for wine and "o bere" for beer. how is one feminine and one masculine?
- 1543
I noticed that gender is language-based, depending on where the word was initially adopted from (ethimology). For example, in Spanish you have 'un planeta' which is masculine, but in Romanian you have 'o planetă', which is feminine. Just like prepositions, it is difficult to explain why they are different in other languages.
here in Middle-East Europe if something is nice and beautiful the more likely it is feminine :) that's my impression, starting from Germany it can be changed to what's bad is feminine :)
