Welcome to the Workshop
Working with wood involves a specific set of tools and vocabulary. Let's start with the artisan and their craft: the carpenter (tâmplarul) and carpentry (tâmplăria).
| The carpenter loves carpentry. | Tâmplarul iubește tâmplăria. |
A busy workshop inevitably means dealing with sawdust (rumegușul). Notice the expression zi de zi (day by day / every day) used below to describe a daily routine.
| The carpenter sweeps the sawdust from the workshop every day. | Tâmplarul mătură rumegușul din atelier zi de zi. |
Carving and Shaping Wood
When shaping wood, you will often use a chisel (dalta) to carve (a sculpta). To indicate that you are performing an action with a specific tool, use the preposition cu.
| The girl is carving the wood with a new chisel. | Fata sculptează lemnul cu o daltă nouă. |
| It seems to me that her hobby is to carve wood. | Mi se pare că hobby-ul ei este să sculpteze lemnul. |
Another essential tool is the hand plane (rindeaua), used to smooth the wood along its grain (fibra). The compound preposition de-a lungul (along) requires the noun that follows it to be in the genitive case. Because fibră is feminine, its definite genitive form becomes fibrei.
| You must push the hand plane along the grain. | Trebuie să împingi rindeaua de-a lungul fibrei. |
Securing and Finishing
Before making precise cuts or adding the final touches, you must secure the board with a clamp (clema). To express the purpose of an action (meaning "in order to"), you can use ca să followed by a subjunctive verb.
| I need a clamp to secure the board. | Am nevoie de o clemă ca să securizez scândura. |
Once the piece is built, it's time to finish (a finisa) it. A common material to protect the wood is varnish (lacul).
Another very common way to express purpose in Romanian is by using pentru a followed by the infinitive form of the verb (such as pentru a finisa).
| The varnish is necessary to finish the furniture. | Lacul este necesar pentru a finisa mobila. |
| From time to time, the woman finishes the toys with varnish. | Din când în când, femeia finisează jucăriile cu lac. |