To speak correct Romanian

New national internal trainingswereheld under the guidance of Ms. Irina Condrea, Doctor of Philology, associate professor at the State University of Moldova (SUM). This event is part of a series of trainings organized by APT Moldova in view of continuous training of the Association Members.  The event gathered both Association Members and its associates, in total - 15 persons. The audience was fully captivated by the teaching talent of Ms. Condrea,  so that the workshop planned for one hour and a half lasted for more than two hours. All those present were able to verify the correctness of their speech in Romanian and they realized how much they have to improve.

Accordingly, from now on we will try to be more careful in using the Russian models that often creep into the language of native speakers and try to avoid them during translation exercises. For example, we will not say 'a se starui'(which is a direct translation from Russian) butwe will use "a depune efort";and we will not say 'a se atirna'  but we will say 'a avea o atitudine', etc.  The list is long.  Misuse of such words, as Ms. Condreapointed out occur, especially in cases of reflexive verbs like: "a se achita - to discharge, a se determina -to determine, a se expune - to expose, a se împărtăşi - to share, a se primi -  to receive. The examples invoked bythe teacher had us laughing.

Further on, the teacher drew our attention to the category of verbs with prefixes that in oral speech are often influenced by verbs from the Russian language. For example, the verbs: a precauta (pre-search), a retrai (relive), a reiesi (to emerge) are pure localinventions, frequently used in a sense different from that in the dictionaries. The translators' duty, when translating speeches containing incorrect verbs in Romanian, is to guess the correct verb and express the message intended by the speaker correctly in the target language.

It turns out that Romanian speakers often have problems in usage of prepositions, again due to the influence of the Russian language. Many of us realize that they say "la etapa actuala"(at present), while the correct form is "in etapa actuala" or they say "in rezultat" while it is correct to say "ca rezultat". In such cases, it is required that a translator be careful and keep in mind that one of his/her main missions is to speak the languages correctly, both native and foreign.

"Even more frequently occurs the incorrect use of semantic models" –stated Ms. Condrea, drawing our attention. Even TV reporters use phrases like: "a juca nunta" (play the wedding) anda prieteni (make fiends"), which are strange for the Romanian language. The remedy that would help us to avoid such mistakes is an old one, known to all of us: ongoing reading of newspapers and books in Romanian and participation in various cultural events, where we can hear accurate Romanian speech. 

Towards the end of the workshop we had a lot of fun, when Ms. Condreatold us  about situations, sometimes ridiculous, which occur very often while using shortened words and abbreviations, which are not specific to the Romanian language. So, dear translators, pay attention to the use of abbreviations: Mr., Mrs., etc. and polite pronouns like: Dansa, Dansul (He, She), etc. We should be careful while using the pronouns "careva" (anyone), which should not be used before the noun.  There were some other helpful tips, such as dividing long sentences to avoid the agglomeration of adjectives, especially when we translate from Russian, otherwise we risk using phrases ofthe sortused in street advertisements: "Palarii pentru barbati de paie Hats for straw men.
We thankedMs. Irina Condreaa lot for this workshop,which was interesting and useful, and we hope to continue such training courses.

Category: Internal trainings