Albaglobal - Language Reference Guide For Romanian

Contents:

1. Grammar and Spelling
2. Punctuation
3. Measurements and Abbreviations
4. Hyphenation
5. Miscellaneous Peculiarities
6. Geographic Distribution
7. Character Set

Section One - Grammar and Spelling

1. Gender: There are three genders in Romanian: masculine, feminine and neuter. They are recognised by comparing the singular and plural forms of nouns.

2. Cases: Nominative, accusative, dative, genitive, vocative.

3. Articles: The definite article is always added at the end of the word, while the indefinite article always precedes the word to which it is applied, as a separate particle.

4. One letter words: The one letter words are very few (a, e, i, o) and are used under strict rules that give no room for interpretation errors. In this respect, the possibility for misinterpretation is not more likely in Romanian than in English.

5. Accents: There are no accents as such. This is the rule. The only exceptions are á and ó, which are used in very rare cases just to differentiate between two meanings of the same written word. For example, 'copii' has two meanings (children and copies), and for the sake of clarity, when the latter meaning is implied, the word is written 'cópii'.

Then there are the special characters (ă, Ă, ş, Ş, ţ, Ţ, î, Î, â, Â) which can be used in lower case as well as in upper case.

6. Plural: The plural form is highly irregular with many rules and exceptions.

7. Capitalisation: Capitalisation rules generally follow those of English.

As a rule, formal forms of address are in-capped. First letters of names of nations are put in lower case. First letters of names of days/seasons/months are also put in lower case (exceptions are dates that designate special events, i.e. public holidays - December 1st = 1 Decembrie).

Headings, product names, the first word in a sentence, proper names, formal forms of address and names of public holidays all begin with a capital letter.

Section Two - Punctuation

1. Full stops: These are used in the same way as English.

2. Speech marks: The speech marks are generally used in the same way as in English. Quotation marks that open a quotation are always put low on the line and those which end the quotation are put high on the line (example: „citat=quotation”). A long dash is used for marking dialogue, as well as a separator inside a phrase which needs, for instance, an explanation (example: His son - the one near the window - is very talented.) Examples:

1. - Dă-mi mai mult de lucru! strigă Chloe. ("Give me more work!", shouted Chloe.)
2. - Vrea cineva ceai? întrebă George. ("Would anyone like some tea?" asked George.)
3. - M-am plictisit, acum pot să plec acasă? spuse Michala. ("I'm bored - can I go home now?", Michala said.)

3. Apostrophe: The apostrophe is only used informally, as a representation for missing sounds in the spoken language.

4. Colons, semi-colons and ellipsis: These are used in the same way as English.

5. Brackets: Brackets are used and the text within them punctuated and capitalised in the same way as in English.

Section Three - Measurements and Abbreviations

1. Measurements: Generally the metric system is used, but some measurements, such as computer monitors, inner diameter of pipes/tubes, nautical miles, size of computer disks for example, are given as imperial measurements.

The decimal separator is the comma and the thousands separator is the dot. Correspondent Romanian separators: 4,5 cm / 4.000 / 50.000. The thousands separator is not obligatory.

10.30 am / noon / 4.30 pm / midnight = 10.30 / 12.00 / 16.30 / 0.00, although formats like 10:30, 10.30 am and 4.30 pm are also valid.

Dates:

20 February 2004
20th February 2004
20/02/2004
February 20
20 februarie 2004
20.02.2004 or 20-02-2004 or 20.02.04

There should always be a space between a figure and a measurement abbreviation.

There should not be a space before a % symbol.

There should not be a space left before °C

Currency: The currency symbol/word/code is always written after the numerical description. E.g. 100£ / 100$ / 100 lei / 100 euro / 100 lire sterline (pound sterling) / 100 dolari (dollars) / 100 ROL / 100 EUR / 100 GBP / 100 USD

2. Abbreviations:

N/a = F/R
No. (nos.) = Nr.
e.g. = ex.:
WxLxHxD = lxLxhxa (length is always capital L)
1st / 2nd / 3rd / 4th
Mr. / Mrs. = dl, d-l, d-le / dna, d-na
Messrs. = d-lor
Miss = dra, d-ra
Dear Sir / Madam = Stimate Domnule / Stimata Doamna
m (for metre) = m
cm (for centimetre) = cm
lb (for pound weight) = livră
g (for gram) = g
km (for kilometre) = km
yr (for year) = an (the whole word for year)
k (for 1000) = k

EMEA (Europe, Middle-East & Asia) = (no Romanian equivalent)

Days of the week: Mon, Tues, Wed, Thurs, Fri, Sat, Sun = (not normally abbreviated in Romanian)

Months: Jan, Feb, Mar, Apr, May, Jun, Jul, Aug, Sep, Oct, Nov, Dec = Ian, Feb, Mar, Apr, Mai, Iun, Iul, Aug, Sep, Oct, Nov, Dec

Seasons: Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter (not normally abbreviated in English) = (not normally abbreviated in Romanian)

Boulevard, Blvd. = Bd., B-dul, Bdul

St. = Str.

Section Four - Hyphenation

Hyphens are used. Words are split by syllabic structure. Compound words are not to be split at the end of the line.
Words joined together using hyphens are common.
Prefixes/suffixes exist which are joined to words using hyphens but these are rarely used.
Short dashes are frequently used as hyphens in compound words, while long dashes are used as dialogue markers and in-phrase separators.

Section Five - Miscellaneous Peculiarities

Place names often have their own Romanian form (e.g. London=Londra, Switzerland=Elveţia).

Normally, surnames are given after the first name. Rarely, surnames are written all in upper case.

Romanian uses stylistic forms such as bold or italics in the same way as English.

The repetition of words within the same sentence is to be avoided as much as possible, which is why synonyms are used whenever they are available. This does not apply to technical/specialised terms.

Section Six - Geographic Distribution

The official/national language of Romania is Romanian. It is spoken/written all over the country and the great majority of the population (over 90%) uses it. There are, however, regions where it coexists with Hungarian, German or Slavic languages, according to the ethnic composition of the local population. Romanian belongs to the Romance languages family. It is the only such language spoken in Eastern Europe, having descended from the Latin introduced by the Roman Conquerors after the 2nd century A.D. Romanian is more archaic than the other Romance languages and has been influenced by the non-Romance languages spoken in nearby countries, especially Hungarian, Albanian, and the various Slavic languages. A variety of Romanian is spoken in the Republic of Moldova, where it is known as Moldavian.

Section Seven - Character Set

[ ] = Alt key codes

LOWER CASE	UPPER CASE
a ă [0227] â [0226]	A Ă [0195] Â [0194]
b	B
c	C
d	D
e	E
f	F
g	G
h	H
i î [140]	I Î [0206]
j	J
k	K
l	L
m	M
n	N
o	O
p	P
(q)	(Q)
r	R
s ş [0186]	S Ş [0170]
t ţ [0254]	T Ţ [0222]
u	U
v	V
(w)	(W)
x	X
(y)	(Y)
z	Z

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