So, we all know what the title of this blog means: "From many, one." I'm contemplating this simple message and the motto of the United States as I struggle with the idea of plurals in Romanian. But, it's not just plurals, I'm also wrestling with "declensions" in this language as well, but we'll get to that in another post.
For now, we'll just stick to the idea of "plural". It's very important in Romanian that one pronounce words carefully to determine whether they are plural or not, but it also means learning up to 6 or 7 words for every noun that we would know in English, and it's also important to know the gender of the noun. Example: girl (which is a feminine noun) -- one girl is "o fata" and the last A is pronounced "uh". Two or more girls are "fete" [feh-teh]. A specific girl is just "fata," but the last A is pronounced "ah". A little girl is "o fetiţă" [oh feh-teet-zuh] and a specific little girl is "fetita" [feh-teet-tah], so a bunch of specific little girls is "fetele" [feh-teh-lay], but a bunch of non specific little girls are simply "fete mici" [feh-teh meetch] (small girls).
And this is just one noun!
It's a good thing that I love a challenge. :o)
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