Do you read one book at a time or multiple books?

[Henk]

Blah-blah-blah!

Don't even bother. It's all blah-blah-blah!

You just don't want to get into it. I can understand this, we all need to care about our hygiëne in order to stay focused on our own lives.

[vers la flamme]

More than one at a time. Often too many to finish in a reasonable time span.   

[Florestan]

our own lives.

Exactly.

[DavidW]

It does make me wonder. I do like being able to buy food, wear clothes, and use electricity, though.

I would be happy to read books and listen to music for a living, if anyone has a vacancy.

There used to be a poster here that took UK's generous unemployment to basically do that: listen to music, read and enjoy life at the government's expense.  Don't know what happened to him.

[foxandpeng]

There used to be a poster here that took UK's generous unemployment to basically do that: listen to music, read and enjoy life at the government's expense.  Don't know what happened to him.

He probably lives in my road.

Several do...

[AnotherSpin]

At any given moment of time I read one book only.

[foxandpeng]

At any given moment of time I read one book only.

I wish I could cultivate a 'two eyes, two books' policy. One at a time seems unfair. As does the 'one recording, two ears' limitation.

[Jo498]

More than one at a time. Often too many to finish in a reasonable time span.   

Yes. I think one fiction and one non-fiction is manageable. But more leads to me getting stuck, taking forever to finish or not finishing at all. Happens all the time, unfortunately.

[Florestan]

You just don't want to get into it. I can understand this, we all need to care about our hygiëne in order to stay focused on our own lives.

Don't get me wrong, in my misspent youth I read a lot of philosophy and even considered getting a degree in it. 

[steve ridgway]

Don't get me wrong, in my misspent youth I read a lot of philosophy and even considered getting a degree in it. 

Me too, I often had that feeling it was all on the verge of making sense .

[ultralinear]

Don't get me wrong, in my misspent youth I read a lot of philosophy and even considered getting a degree in it. 

I did get a degree in it.  That cured me.

[Brian]

Usually three, sometimes four.

Book #1: the "main book" that I'm reading when I sit down to spend an hour reading a book.

Book #1a: if book #1 is too dense or serious, I pick up a light fast read to enjoy as a little break before going back to the serious book.

Book #2: some kind of long nonfiction book I can pick up and put down whenever.

Book #3: short essays or chapters I can read before bedtime, often a very long collection of essays or critical writing.

For example, the slots are now roughly occupied by:

1 - three Saul Bellow novels in an omnibus
1a - Glitz, by Elmore Leonard
2 - Against Interpretation and Other Essays, by Susan Sontag
3 - Bertrand Russell's History of Western Philosophy

[Karl Henning]

Don't get me wrong, in my misspent youth I read a lot of philosophy and even considered getting a degree in it. 

Posting here, just because searching for the Language Learners thread fails me:

[Karl Henning]

TD: It was different before my stroke, but nowadays, I'm at work almost exclusively on just two books at a time.

[Florestan]

Posting here, just because searching for the Language Learners thread fails me:

Very nice, she's obviously a native Romanian speaker. Problem is, most of those words are mainly used in literature, newspaper articles or educated speech. One is unlikely to hear them in regular conversation and they won't help anyone to find their way in the streets or to order food/drink. 

[Pohjolas Daughter]

Very nice, she's obviously a native Romanian speaker. Problem is, most of those words are mainly used in literature, newspaper articles or educated speech. One is unlikely to hear them in regular conversation and they won't help anyone to find their way in the streets or to order food/drink. 

So, which phrases do you think are essential?  And any youtube or other links for pronunciation?  And also suggestions for proper etiquette and things that people from other cultures probably wouldn't know about Romanian culture?    You might want to start a new thread though!   

PD

[Florestan]

Thank you very much for your interest in Romanian language and culture, PD! Much appreciated.

So, which phrases do you think are essential?  And any youtube or other links for pronunciation?  And also suggestions for proper etiquette and things that people from other cultures probably wouldn't know about Romanian culture?   

Answering these questions properly would be widely off-topic and would require a thread of their own. I would need a few long-ish posts for each question.

You might want to start a new thread though!   

Well, exactly --- and I'm not sure it would be of much interest. 

Some short answers, though:

1. The essential phrases are those of any other language: greetings, introducing oneself, asking for direction in the streets, ordering food/drink. A native speaker of a Romance language can learn them relatively easy, at least much easier than a native speaker of a non-Romance language. With respect to vocabulary, spelling/orthography and pronunciation, the closest to Romanian is Italian, followed by Catalan and Spanish (in this order). French heavily influenced the vocabulary in the second half of the 19th century and until the Communist takeover all educated Romanians spoke, read and wrote it fluently, but the pronunciation and spelling is very different.

My personal experience is that an educated Romanian with a gift for languages (such as yours truly) can understand and speak Italian, Catalan, Spanish, French, Portuguese or any other Romance language, even Southern Italian dialects such as Neapolitan, Sicilian, Sardinian and Corsican, without ever having studied them properly; the reciprocal is also true but in a lesser degree.

2. The Romanian pronunciation is difficult for English-speaking natives: lots of diphthongs and triphthongs, sounds like ț, ă, â/î which have no, or only approximate, equivalents in English --- but first and foremost, the phonetic orthography: words are basically pronounced exactly as written, each letter has exactly the same phonetic value, a very far cry from English. The infamous fish = ghoti is completely alien to Romanian. "gh" is always pronounced the same way, nothing at all like "f"; "o", ditto, nothing at all like "i"; "ti" ditto, nothing at all like "sh" (btw, the Romanian letter corresponding to "sh" is ș). For me there are two equally funny instances: English spoken with strong Romanian accent and pronunciation and Romanian spoken with strong English accent and pronunciation.

3. Romanian etiquette, well...it's basically the same as everywhere else in Latin/Southern Europe; personally, I felt most at home in Italy, Greece and Turkey. Much more informal and much less politically correct than in USA/Northern Europe.

I hope this helps a little, PD. For any further information don't hesitate to PM me and I'll gladly elaborate. Really, starting a thread on Romanian culture and civilization, tempting as it is for me, would be a step too far.