Romanian language

Why is there another poster with the same name as myself. Albeit missing an l? Confusing

Hello Bubbe! Thank you so much in Romanian is " Multzumesc mult"; thank you= multzumesc , so much= mult. If you want to ask her "How are you"= Ce mai faci? ( how= ce are = mai faci, you=tu. The answer: I'm well= Eu sunt bine( I =Eu, am=sunt, well=bine. Yes=Da, No=Nu.

I must write all these down.
UG - I kow what you mean now - I think that's what's behind my anxieties about this.

We lived just 2hrs drive from the Romanian border so visited the country often, particularly Transylvania on Halloween.
OH picked up some of the language but I couldn't get a handle on it. He was very good at Bulgarian as well. The strange thing about that is: his name is LaRoche and he can't get a handle on French ?

Izabela, I shall be printing the vocabulary out and rehearse saying. I shall share with the 7 and almost 4 year old's so they can practise too.

I hope this will delight the lady who cleans. She's such a gem.

Thanks for your help

Fennel, if you have a smart phone, you can use google translate to write what you want from that woman and then use the audio icon in Romanian, as Grannyknot said already. This will tell her in Romanian what to do. Other words in Romanian: wash= spala, water=apa, bucket=galeata, mop=mop, pour water= toarna apa ( pour=toarna), washing machine= masina de spalat ( machine =masina, washing=de spalat), wash laundry= spala rufele, sink=chiuveta, floor= podea, toilet= WC or toaleta, kitchen= bucatarie, bedroom=dormitor, dinning room= sufragerie, bathroom=baie. Please!= Te rog! Thank you != Multzumesc! Good morning! = Buna dimineatza!( morning=dimineatza), Good night! = Buna seara!( night=seara), day=zi.

Izabella that happens quite often in GN ... I agree that it can be confusing e.g. Bellanonna or Bellasnonna (not even sure I have those correct!) and there are a few more.

This is an interesting thread.

Romanian does use the Latin alphabet. It is a Romance language so if you know either some French, Italian, Spanish or Portuguese , 'or indeed any Latin, you will be able to recognise a good many words.

Google translate will certainly help with words and phrases, but frequently makes mistakes in more complex sentences.

Try Duolingo. I found it great for Spanish. Easy to learn basics.o

Thanks for all your helpful replies.
She came today and did a good job, but doesn't seem ready as yet to communicate verbally in english. Though she does know a few words.
She still depends on mobile contact with the english-speaking Romanian who introduced her.
Non verbal communication was better.
She seems to be a very decent young woman, keen to please.
However left me feeling rather ashamed of the amount of dust/ muck etc in the house. Had to do a huge amount of laundry.
Onwards and upwards!

Glad (for starters) it went better than you feared Fennel

I bet though you’re waiting in slight trepidation for your husband’s ‘sophisticated equipment’ to be tackled.

Ooh, actually that sounded a little rude.
?

he showed her how to use the floor washer, something like this:
www.amazon.com/Hoover-FloorMate-Deluxe-Cleaner-Moondust/dp/B00CM220CK?ref_=fsclp_pl_dp_2&tag=gransnetforum-21
But she never attempted it, just made do with the 'Hoover'.
I'm beginning to doubt that she's Romanian, maybe from some other Balkan country? ex Yugoslavia.

Fennel, I actually have an array of carers, and not just from Europe. One of them is from Mongolia and another, Russian, for example.
From experiences, I would strongly suggest that you use small, very simplified, but specific, hand drawn stick-people pictures. Draw simple tasks that they do with each product, and more to the point, which products must not to use on certain surfaces.

Speaking directly from an expensive mistake, HOW MUCH TIME must products NOT BE LEFT on certain surfaces. Stick labels on cleaning products that you use for specific tasks, but also ensure that she is aware of there is any time limit whatsoever that she leaves a product on for. Our’s left a limescale remover product on for longer than the ten minute time, stated in the instructions (and pictorially as well, but not that clear if you can’t actually read the instructions too). She generously squirted the product all around the base of the tap, the tap head and also around the plug hole, where there was a chrome plug and exit pipe, again all covered in chrome.

When she went to remove it, she’d obviously left it on an awful lot longer, as all the chrome that came into contact with this cleaner, immediately came off too. Lots of it. All round the plug hole rim too. It wasn’t something that could be hid, although disappointingly she didn’t actually own up to it. I guessed that she was almost certainly afraid that she’d be sacked by her company if they found out. I was absolutely amazed that she hadn’t been caught out before though!

I knew that it would cost far more to try and rectify it cost effectively, and very unfortunately it was a newly fitted suite. Thankfully, after much shopping around, I did find a replacement sink, with the right proportions. But it meant we had to remove the whole damaged sink in its entirety. Then we had to remove the tiles behind it and use spare ones with no screw holes or cutting (thankfully, I always insist on getting extras of absolutely anything, whenever work is done to the house, such as spare tiles, fabric, wallpaper, paint, etc, and it’s proved its worth many more than several times, so a very cost effective tip too!).

I think that this is definitely a task for your husband to do. Maybe, in addition to his pictorial stick people drawn doing certain cleaning activities, I’d be very tempted, to get him, to sit down with her, with google translate, and via Google, get her to ask any questions to ensure that she knows which cleaning product is for what, and what it most definitely isn’t for.

Then, I’d give her a notebook for any questions arising for the next bit. He then needs to show her around the house and show her how he likes each part of the house cleaned, and with which equipment and technique that he likes to use. She can write down questions until they can sit down and use google translate to get answers to any questions that she has. I would encourage her to write on the labels, to be stuck to each cleaning product, any additional information to herself that she might forget in the interim to the next clean.

Fingers crossed for you!

A very interesting thread. Fennel, I'm sure you will be able to communicate with all of the good advice you received here.

Ippydippyskyblue (love your user name), you brought up some excellent advice, obviously from previous experience.
Thanks for sharing.

Thanks for a very helpful post,*lippy*.
She's due to return on Thursday, and will ask husband to read your advice.
I get the impression though that her heart isn't in the job, and she doesn't really want to improve her language skills.
We'll see. She has 2 very young children.

How about using simple homemade cleaning products or the eco range? That way , no need to replace a bathroom if a servant gets it wrong.

Husband has strong views on what products to use so I leave that to him.
I would much rather not have cleaning help, but we're both getting on in age and physically can't cope.

Since when were carers responsible for removing limescale?

Surely that's part of a 'deep clean' regime.

Seems a bit odd to be dependant on mobile contact with an English speaking Romanian who hired her! Are you sure she is not being people trafficked? Especially with all the Brexit upheaval.

We've just realised that she's back in Roumania at the moment visiting her babies. As she didn't turn up we rang the other lady and she said she returns tomorrow.
Maria did manage to communicate to me that there's much poverty in Roumania, "no job, no money". I'm guessing they come here to earn some money and take it home to support the family.

There are vast numbers of Romanians here in Italy and they pick up perfect Italian in no time as it is similar to their Language.

When our house was built here in Rome, all the builders were Romanian. Here, they lived three/four to a rented room in order to save, and would send all their money back to Romania for their families there and to build beautiful villas for themselves. I've seen the photos of some of them.

After working on building sites for eleven months, they would pop home for the month of August and carry on building their new homes there.

Many have left now as there is a bad slump in the building industry.

I have also taught many of their children in the Italian schools and, on the whole, they are very serious students who do well. In fact, they are often top of the class in English.

Elaine - I don't think she's being abused, just homesick, poor woman.
giulia - that's interesting about picking up Italian. When I was a student I had a holiday job in a psychiatric hospital and made friends with a group of young Italians. Post WW2 immigrants. I managed to communicate with them in a mixture of french and latin.
Italian is a very musical language.

Some of you must have complex cleaning needs I m soooooo pleased I m not cleaning your house ippydippy I used to clean houses once myself when I was a single parent and used polish on furniture shelves etc a bathroom/ kitchen cream cleaner on baths sinks etc bleach down the toilets and Coca-Cola for limescale, vinegar and water with newspaper for the windows I certainly wouldn’t have needed drawings even if I didn’t speak your language a few hand gestures would be enough
All the carers /cleaners my Dad had were from various South American countries, Malaysia, Filipino and numerous European countries some had good English some spoke little but they were all wonderful with him he loved them, looked forward to seeing them, and they loved him He was a very undemanding man
umstrong a bit negative methinks

You could try encouraging her to use english. Start by pointing at say a duster, saying in english and asking for it Romanian.