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Romanian "a trebui" used as "should" | ||
Tags: Romanian | Verbs/Conjugation | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| tennisfan Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 5359 days ago 130 posts - 247 votes  Speaks: English*, Italian, Spanish Studies: German | Message 1 of 4 10 June 2010 at 1:22am | IP Logged | |||||
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Hi guys, I had a question for those of you familiar with Romanian. It concerns the verb "a trebui." I think that so far I have the major uses down:
Imi trebuie (ceva) Trebuie sa... (fac ceva) A trebuit sa... Va trebui sa... Trebuia sa... The problem I have is with the conditional form: ar trebui sa... What exactly does this mean? DLI says it is the way to express "should" in Romanian. Sunt bolnav, deci ar trebui să merg la doctor. the implication is: Nu știu dacă o să merg sau n-o să merg. This seems fine enough. But.... the confusion for me rises when I want to say something like "I would have to..." The literally translation for "ar trebui" would be "to would-have to..." but apparently this is translated as "should." It does seem intuitive, though, that there is a difference between "should" and "would have to." The former suggests that something would be a good idea, but is not obligatory (like in the above example). But if "should" is already formed with the conditional, then how would I form the conditional of "must" without using "ar trebui" and making it seem like I think 'should' when I really mean 'would have to'? A example from recent history, Dacă Constantinescu ar demisiona, ar trebui să alegem un președinte nou. This is what I mean by "would have to." There is no choice; if Constantinescu ar demisiona, laws require that in the case, Romanians would HAVE to pick a new president. There is no "should," no "maybe it's a good idea, but maybe not..." It would have to be done, but it is conditional. But.... we have already used the conditional for "should." I spoke with a Romanian friend about this who said that you can take care of it by saying "Dacă Constantinescu ar demisiona, va trebui să alegem un președinte." But is this really the only way to take care of it? 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| daniela Newbie Romania Joined 5280 days ago 18 posts - 29 votes Speaks: Romanian* | Message 2 of 4 10 June 2010 at 4:42pm | IP Logged | |||||
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"A trebui" is used to express a necessity, an obligation, a commandment or duty etc. I think it covers "should", "must" and "have to". You can conjugate it and use the appropriate tense for what you want to express. If the necessity appeared in the past you should use a past tense, if it is affecting the person now, use present, and if it is something you foresee that will be necessary or requested in the future use a future tense.
"Ar trebui" is the form for a tense called conditional-optativ. This tense can be used to express an hypothetical action and the action whose existence depends on its realization: "Dacă Constantinescu ar demisiona, ar trebui să alegem un președinte nou". "Ar trebui" can also be used to express an opinion ("Ar trebui sa mergi la doctor" - I suggest you should see a doctor, but I can't force you). Regarding your last question: you could say "Dacă Constantinescu ar demisiona, va trebui să alegem un președinte nou", but more correct would be to use "Dacă Constantinescu ar demisiona, ar trebui să alegem un președinte nou" or "Dacă Constantinescu va demisiona, va trebui să alegem un președinte nou". Edited by daniela on 10 June 2010 at 4:59pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Fazla Hexaglot Senior Member Italy Joined 6261 days ago 166 posts - 255 votes Speaks: Italian, Serbo-Croatian*, English, Russian, Portuguese, French Studies: Arabic (classical), German, Turkish, Mandarin | Message 3 of 4 10 June 2010 at 5:25pm | IP Logged | |||||
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A slight off topic, am I right to suppose that trebui comes from slavic "trebati" (that's in Bosnian at least, but there's a similiar form in Russian, I guess there must be some similiar form in other slavic languages) which means "to need"?
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| Chung Diglot Senior Member Joined 7155 days ago 4228 posts - 8259 votes 20 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish | Message 4 of 4 11 June 2010 at 1:51am | IP Logged | |||||
Yes. It is a borrowing from a Slavonic language.
The last sentence in the explanatory dictionary's entry for "a trebui" is "Din sl. trĕbovati" meaning "From Slavonic trĕbovati." (sl. is the abbreviation for "Slavonic") 1 person has voted this message useful |
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