Any Hungarian/Romanian Mners, or that knows the language?

[koshka1984]

Hope someone that can help!

My Grandads family are hungarian, who now live in Romania (due to border changes).
Because of this im not even sure which language it is!

I have recieved a baby card from them and i would love to know what it says and reply back to them.

Any help would be greatly recieved or a pointer towards any websites.

x

anyone?

If it helps, Romanian is a Latin language, bit like French for some words. Hungarian is weird, it's like Finnish or Estonian, not an Indo-European language.

If you type out what it says, there may be someone here who could help?

I could try my sister whose DH was at the embassy in Bucharest for 3 years. I know that Romanian has -ul on the end of words which means 'the'

Hi there,
I guess, your family originates from Transylvania, where minority Hungarians would still very much speak Hungarian - probably better than their cousins in Hungary . I, too, speak the language, so if I can be of any help, let me know.
Rgds,
bernie

Hi Koshka - I'm Romanian so you can ask me if you want.

Rustybear - was your sister in Romania too? Did she manage to learn the language?

Koshka - BTW your name means cat in Russian (if I remember well). I had a friend in school with this as a surname.

I speak Romanian, but it's a bit rusty these days. Lived in Romania for 3 1/2 years

Rustybear, maybe I met your sister's DH in the Embassy bar. I was an infrequent visitor, I hasten to add! Honest!

Hi Koshka,

My dh is Hungarian and he can translate it - or I can if it's not too complicated as I can speak a bit. That is, of course, as long as it's Hungarian not Romanian

Yes my sister was there, and yes she learnt the language - she's a professional translator & added Romanian to her languages while she was there - not sure if I should say this, but actually BIL was the ambassador - he came back in May. When were you there,MrsSchadenfreude?

I was there before your BIL, but I know who he is (but don't know him personally). at your sister being a professional translator - that's always been my dream job!

Were/are you a diplomat, or did you just hang around the bar?

Hang around the bar!? Me? Drink? The very idea! How very dare you!

Yes.

This was my sis's major job, mostly she does scientific papers from French

Gosh, I'm impressed. I was thinking I'd like to translate novels. I read one of my favourite novels (it's German) in translation after having read the original and remember screaming at it because the translation was so badly done it missed the whole bloody point of the book at the end.

Was it translated by a German? My sis always says you should never translate out of your own first language, only into it. (unless you're genuinely bilingual of course)

No, she was English and missed the whole damn point of the bloody book by her crap translation.

Your sister is absolutely spot on - no matter how good your command of another language, you will never be able to write it like a native speaker. I've been reading Bridget Jones's Diary in Dutch and that is poorly translated too. Most of the jokes and puns are just translated literally rather than any attempt being made to find an equivalent sort of pun (and they must exist) in Dutch.

I wonder if koshka ever got her card translated? -we seem to have hijacked this thread a bit!!!

Yes - sorry Koshka! But she hasn't come back. Perhaps we've scared her off!

How long were you in Romania for? Sis & BIL were there for 3 years & we went out there twice - we went to Transylvania for a few days - once to Sibiu & once to Miclosoara - did a tour of all the fortified churches

About three and a half years. Some of the time in Brasov, but mostly in Bucharest. Went round some (but not all) of the fortified churches. Very interesting and a great pity that the German community has all but gone now. My (completely unachieved) plan while I was there was to interview women from different backgrounds (esp minorities) and write it up. Unfortunately (if that's the right word) I spent much of my time there pregnant (two babies) or back in UK heaving them out and it never got done. The only interview I did was with a Roma girl who was 15 and had been married for 3 years (I was working on a project which was teaching literacy to Roma women). She was fascinating.

I remember at one of the churches ( I can't remember which), we were shown around by a man of saxon descent who was 17 at the end of the war, when all the Saxon/German boys were rounded up & sent off to forced labour in Russia - he & a few others ran away & lived in the woods for months in the middle of winter - he used to sneak back to see his mum occasionally. It was very moving to hear him talk about it - most of his friends never came back.