Btw, many romanian people speak french, don't they
?
Uh-oh, "you got me started" alert, combined with "I've got too
much free
time on my hands" alert! :)
There was a very strong trend towards speaking French until the end of
WWII (quoting from
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Romania):
"Carol was crowned as the first King of Romania
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kings_of_Romania> in 1881
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1881>.
"The new state, squeezed between the great powers of Ottoman,
Austro-Hungarian, and Russian empires, with Slav neighbors on three
sides, looked to the West, particularly France
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/France>, for its cultural, educational,
and administrative models."
After the communists came to power however, Romania stopped "looking to
the West, particularly France", and instead started looking to the East,
particularly USSR. :(
So, nowadays there aren't so many French speaking Romanians left,
although it is one of the traditional languages being taught in schools
(we learn two foreign languages during eight, respectively seven years
until the end of high school, typically an assortment of English, French
and German; I for instance studied French and English in that order, but
I speak reasonable English while being almost fully incapacitated in
French).
Incidentally, my wife speaks impeccable French, she works at Radio
Romania International (
http://www.rri.ro), the French branch. Maybe I
would've spoken better French than I can, hadn't I married her: a couple
of years back we went to Paris for three weeks, and she did all the
talking, the only French words I said being "Une blanche!". :)
Gutza