Bună ziua!
Norbert here!
The Romanian language is a Romance language
that has been significantly influenced by the surrounding Slavic languages.
In this video, you will see how comprehensible Romanian is
to speakers of Quebec French and Mexican Spanish!
Coming up!
Welcome to the Ecolinguist channel, hosted by Norbert.
I am Vlad and today I will be speaking in Romanian.
I am joined by Marc who speaks French.
And alongside Isidro who speaks Spanish.
Hi!
The rules of the game are very simple.
I will be giving them several words in Romanian to see if they can understand them.
I will be talking in Romanian throughout the video and we will find out if we can understand one another.
The first word
The first word will be ''usturoi'.'
''usturoi''
It refers to a kind of food, something you put in whilst cooking, an aliment.
A meal?
An aliment yeah.
And it is strongly traditionally related to Romania.
Okay so a Romanian traditional dish, okay hmm.
I’ve never heard about this.
A question, is it the name of a typical meal in Romania?
No, but it is related to that.
It is something traditional from the region of Romanian called Transylvania.
Related to a personality.
So it’s a person?
Related to a personality.
Okay so it’s an adjective? Qualitative?
Is it a...?
Is it a person? Maybe…
It is a kind of food.
Food is something...
Food is something you have ha ha ha
Yes eating, yes eating ok.
Yes so it has to do with food? It has to do with food that’s for sure.
Yes, food related to a person from Transilvania.
Is it what a person from Transylvania eats?
Yes.
A world known person?
Yes, yes, yes.
Is this a liquid?
No.
I thought it was blood. Dracula eats blood.
Yes, yes, yes.
Something else, not liquid, something else.
Dracula is afraid of...?
It is not liquid.
So we know it’s a traditional food which is not liquid.
It is solid.
Yes, yes, solid, very small, white.
Is it small? Is it garlic. Garlic, like…
Some people make collars with garlic,
and Dracula…
Yes, yes, yes, yes.
Ah! Onions, ah garlic, garlic yeah.
Yes, exactly.
So the word is garlic.
Garlic.
Oh, very different. Garlic, in Spanish.
In French it’s ‘ail’.
Very different, ok.
The next word will be 'cantec'.
'cantec'
Song is related to something that celebrities make and people listen to
Listening to a song.
Is ‘auscultar’ to listen?
Yes.
You can listen to a song or you can dance whilst listening to a song.
Is it a music genre?
Yes, yes, not music, but something related to music, music....
Is it a piece of music? A song?
Yes, yes, yes, yes, song,
song(in french), yes, song
In Spanish, the verb is to sing, the noun is song.
This word is very similar compared to the first word.
The two words we’ve found are really different in each languages.
It is true, they are very different.
Now for the 3rd word I will be giving away clues, not the actual word.
It is something sweet...
It is something sweet that children love, people love.
Sweet, something to eat, like a dessert.
Yes hmm it’s a sweet dessert?
It has sugar, yes, but what, what is it
Is it a type of dessert? Is it a specific dessert?
Yes.
Cake?
No, something tinnier, the same, tiny.
So it’s small, it's a small thing.
Is it a candy?
Could be, possibly, possibly.
Chocolate?
More generic, more generic.
A candy?
Yes, yes.
The word in Romanian is 'candy'.
And in Spanish it is sweet.
The word in general is sweet, maybe due to its characteristic, no?
They are sweet, therefore the name is sweets.
In romanian it's candy and sweet is the taste.
Us we call it’s ‘bonbon’ but we also can say ‘friandise’.
Wow.
Fantastic!
So a ‘friandise’ refers to something usually sweet that you eat.
In Romania this would be a dessert that has some sugar in it.
So, again, the Romanian word is…
Whats the word?
Very similar to French.
Yes.
But very different to Spanish.
Because in Mexican Spanish we call a marshmallow ‘bombón’ like…
the sweet that is…
it has a soft texture,
some are covered with chocolate.
These are ‘bombones’, but the word in general is sweets.
Ok.
In Romanian we have biscuit which sounds a bit like that, bisco-biscuit,
somewhat similar.
The next word will be related to an art image, like a painting.
What do you call a painting...
What do you call a painting that you hang on the wall.
Paint.
A different word.
A synonym for 'painture'.
Painting?
A frame.
A ‘cuadro’ in Spanish is…
for example, this could be a ‘cuadro’ if it had a frame.
Yes.
The word for this in Romanian is 'tablou'
Also in French…
A ‘tableau’ yeah it’s the same thing in french we call it the same.
That's why I tried to not say the exact same word because they are very similar.
Yes.
In Spanish only ‘cuadro’.
Doesn't this mean four?
Quadro-four?
Oh, four. F-O-U-R.
But these words are certainly related, aren’t they?
Because a ‘cuadro’ has four sides.
Oh yeah yeah I see, yeah it makes sense.
In Romanian it's four and and square, four-square.
For us it’s four, four a square four.
Yes, also related, right?
We also have 'careu', 'careu' it is also used in Romanian.
There would be something related to a friend of the human.
Friend with a human...
What is this?
Friend with a human, a being.
Not a person, not a person, but a friend of a human.
It’s not a person, okay.
Not a person.
But a friend with the man.
It’s an action?
No, no, a noun
A name, a thing, an object.
No, not really.
I could say what it actually is, but then it would be easy.
A different being...
it exists, it breathes, but it's not a human.
So it’s an animal.
An animal friend with the man.
Doesn’t ring a bell this…. These words don’t ring a bell
Okay, that is, something that looks like human (human)
Uhm...noot sure, no, no
Ok so it’s a mammal.
Yes, yes, it is a mammal.
Yes, yes, it is a mammal, domestic.
Okay so we can go with a dog ‘chien’?
Yes.
A dog?
Woof woof?
Let’s see, one more time then, Is it a dog?
Yes, in Romanian the word is 'caine'.
Dog and perro.
Very different this word.
Dog. What is it in French?
And how do you say female dog?
Feminine dog.
What is ‘Catchier’?
Feminine dog.
Oh, it is very different, isn’t it?
The feminine of ‘perro’ in Spanish is ‘perra’.
In French?
For us male is dog ‘chien’ and female is bitch ‘chienne’.
Also very similar in French, but in Romanian very different.
I think that in Romanian the masculine for dog is a lot like in Latin.
Latin for dog is ''cane''. Cane - caine....
That's what I suppose.
These are all of the words I have prepared.
Thank you very much, hope you enjoyed it.
Please let us know if you've understood and if you would like us to make more videos like this.
Thank you very much!
Yeah super!
There are not many resemblance but still there were some words I could understand.
Yes, some words are easy to understand,
but the majority...
but the majority is another language.
It is literally another language, but…