Adverbs of manner (pe de rost, în zadar)

Getting ready for university exams can be intense. Sometimes you memorize everything perfectly, sometimes your late-night efforts feel useless, and sometimes you resort to sneaky study tactics. To describe how you perform these actions, Romanian uses adverbial locutions of manner—fixed, multi-word phrases that function as adverbs.

Let's learn three essential phrases for navigating student life.

Memorizing: "Pe de rost"

When you need to memorize a text word-for-word, you learn it pe de rost (by heart).

Let's apply this to a common study task: learning definiția (the definition).

Futile Efforts: "În zadar"

Unfortunately, sometimes your hard work doesn't pay off. If you do something în zadar, you do it in vain.

Let's see this in the context of the verb a recapitula (to review) and the noun sesiunea. Sesiunea translates to "the exam session" and refers to the famously stressful finals period at the end of a Romanian university semester.

Hidden Actions: "Pe ascuns"

When an action is done secretly, quietly, or behind closed doors, use pe ascuns (in secret).

Before looking at an example, let's learn a very common, handy sentence structure. To emphasize multiple items at once, Romanian often repeats conjunctions in pairs:

• și..., și... (both... and...)
• sau..., sau... (either... or...)

Let's apply și..., și... to writing eseul (the essay) in secret.

What about restanța? This is the dreaded "retake exam" for a previously failed class. If you pass it, you might want to keep that success under the radar to avoid having to explain the initial failure!

Bringing It Together

Now let's look at the alternative paired conjunction, sau..., sau... (either... or...), along with a crucial piece of academic writing: teza (the thesis).

And finally, a great student will combine all their skills, writing their thesis and making sure they know it inside and out.