by Most languages have words that seem too long for what they represent. English, for instance, has understand and disappointment. Today, pedestrian came up in a lesson, and I’ve never liked that word – it’s too long, too cumbersome, and I suppose too pedestrian. French has maintenant, which is far too long for something that means “now”. By the time you’ve said or written the word, now has passed. Romanian also has its fair share. The numbers from 11 to 19 are all stupidly long – 17 is șaptesprezece – and most people shorten them in everyday speech. But the biggest culprit, literally, in almost any language, has to be dumneavoastră, which is the Romanian formal version of “you”, just like vous in French, only (unlike in French) it doesn’t also serve as the general plural “you”. It’s also used for the formal “your”. When I first tried learning the language, I was immediately intimidated by this 13-letter monstrosity, which literally means “your lordship”. Surely they don’t actually use this in conversation? But they sure do, in all its glory. Fortunately, Romanian is a “pro-drop” language, which means you can get away with just using the verb form without the subject, so you can often dispense with dumneavoastră. But you can’t always, and when it serves as the formal “your” (rather than “you”), you’re forced to use it. Yesterday I played tennis, partnering a bloke of a similar age to me. Hmmm, can I use the informal tu with you (I hardly know you), or should I play safe and use the formal version? In doubles, it’s fairly common to shout something to indicate that either you or your partner should take the next shot, but you can hardly say dumneavoastră, can you? That’s practically a whole sentence. By about the third syllable the ball will have whizzed by. So what can I say? Yesterday I decided on the English “go!”. I mean, go is universal, right? I’m pretty sure you pass go in even the Romanian version of Monopoly. My partner unfortunately interpreted my “go!” as eu, which means “me”, and our communication breakdown cost us the point.
Last night I realised how much work I still need to do if I’m ever really going to get good at Romanian. Someone from the police called me, and I was lost. In our five-minute conversation, or should I say monologue, he must have said over a thousand words. Just too damn fast, and of course it was on the phone and that makes it even harder. Plus it’s the sodding police – what have I done? It seemed that I hadn’t done anything, and one of his colleagues wanted me to translate something into English later this week. He gave me the phone number, I called this other policeman (I assume that’s what he is) and that was indeed the case.
It tipped it down yesterday morning. Good weather for poker. I got up early and FaceTimed my parents before the tournaments kicked off just after eight (while I was still eating my porridge). I made a decent start to the PLO8, then while that was going on I fired up a single draw in which I broke the best hand to bust out after 40 minutes. Never mind. I was now in the process of amassing a giant stack in the Omaha hi-lo, which was helped immensely by making quad threes to inflict a very unfortunate bad beat on my opponent. I easily made the seven-man final table, and from there anything could have happened. There was a Romanian who hurled insults at me in his native language for some bizarre reason (he could see I was playing from the same country) and I just blocked his chat, before knocking him out in fourth place. The final three were all pretty evenly stacked, but I had basically zero experience at the game short-handed. After a decent number of hands I was out in third place for a $22 profit after just over five hours. By that point I’d also made the final table of the knockout pot-limit badugi (two final tables simultaneously is a rarity for me) and came back well from being relatively short to make the final three. Then, crucially, I was dealt two pat nines that helped me chip up and eventually knock out a good player and grab his healthy bounty. I had a big chip lead as I got heads-up with an inexplicably passive opponent, and soon I’d won a bounty tournament for the first time, making $62. A lucky day. I made $81 overall, and my bankroll is now $705.
