Because both English and Romanian are Latin based languages, they have some words in common. For instance "responsabilitate" is Romanian for "responsibility," "creativitate" is "creativity". There are also words that are similar, but a little different. The word "loc" in Romanian means seat or place rather than location and a library is actually what we would call a bookstore.
Then there are some words in Romanian that are obviously taken from English because they are modern and there was no term for them in Romanian. For example: seminar, laptop, and weekend. So when I find myself stuck not knowing a word, I use a trick that was taught to me by my mentor. Say the English word with a Romanian accent and ending, and it just might work. So that's what I've been doing for the last few months when I come up not knowing a word in class. And it was only a matter of time before this strategy came back to bite me on the ass.
Yesterday in class we were discussing cancer and its various causes. I was trying to explain how chemical pollution, like mercury in the water or an incident like Chernobyl, can cause some forms of cancer. I described this as "polutia chemice." Unfortunately for me the correct term was "polluare chemice." Today, while we were writing lesson plans, my partner explained to me that "polutia" is actually the Romanian term for ejaculation.
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Damnit.
3 comments:
Hahahahaha. That is AWESOME! Made my day. Hehe.
Reminds me of Spanish in high school, and one of the students saying "Soy embarazo," thinking he was saying he was embarrassed. He sure was embarrassed when the teacher told him that boys can't get pregnant, and he might want to look up the proper translation for embarrassed.
remind me when you come home to tell you a story concerning the ASL sign for ejaculate.
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