I gave Mark a pen/I gave Tanya a pen
- Thread starter Samuroid
- Start date
Hi,
Out of curiosity: what prompted the question?
First of all, your sentences are perfectly intelligible. I would changetwo three things:
1. (Added) In your original, the pen is undefined, but in your translation it's defined. That's not not wrong per se, but if you want an exact rendering and not "the pen", then it's "un pix".
2. The structure of the dative in Romanian includes a "doubled" pronoun:
I-am dat un pix lui Mark.
3. The noun has a dative form:
Masculine: I-am dat un pix copilului.
Feminine: I-am dat un pix mamei.
In the case of proper nouns, we don't use a dative form for boy names (we add "lui" instead) but we do modify girls' names if they end in "-a".
I-am dat pix lui Mark.
I-am dat un pix Taniei.
However, if the girl name ends in something other than -a, or is a foreign name, we can safely revert to the pattern used for the masculine
I-am dat un pix lui Carmen.
I-am dat un pix lui Tanya/Tanyei (I'd use whichever).
I hope that makes some sense. :/
Edited because I missed some info.
Out of curiosity: what prompted the question?
First of all, your sentences are perfectly intelligible. I would change
1. (Added) In your original, the pen is undefined, but in your translation it's defined. That's not not wrong per se, but if you want an exact rendering and not "the pen", then it's "un pix".
2. The structure of the dative in Romanian includes a "doubled" pronoun:
I-am dat un pix lui Mark.
3. The noun has a dative form:
Masculine: I-am dat un pix copilului.
Feminine: I-am dat un pix mamei.
In the case of proper nouns, we don't use a dative form for boy names (we add "lui" instead) but we do modify girls' names if they end in "-a".
I-am dat pix lui Mark.
I-am dat un pix Taniei.
However, if the girl name ends in something other than -a, or is a foreign name, we can safely revert to the pattern used for the masculine
I-am dat un pix lui Carmen.
I-am dat un pix lui Tanya/Tanyei (I'd use whichever).
I hope that makes some sense. :/
Edited because I missed some info.
Last edited:
I couldn't understand how to tell something in the dative, I always added lui
And with the definite article:
I-am dat pixul lui Mark
I-am dat pixul Taniei
Is it correct?
Yes, it is. But is it Tania or Tanya?
I thought in Romanian it's Tania 😀Yes, it is. But is it Tania or Tanya?
Thanks a lot
danielstan
Senior Member
Romanian - Romania
In Romanian the feminine proper nouns (names of people, in our case) are ending most of the time in -a:
Maria, Ana, Felicia etc.
Their genitive-dative declension follows the declension of feminine common nouns, thus:
"I-am dat Mariei/Anei/Feliciei"
The feminine proper nouns not ending in -a do not follow this rule, instead they get the masculine nouns declension:
"I-am dat lui Carmen" (the possible form "I-am dat Carmenei" sounds very strange)
The same rule applies for feminine proper nouns of foreign origin:
"I-am dat lui Sarah/lui Tanya/lui Celine etc."