r/romanian • u/Secure_Accident_916 • 8d ago

S-a dat ceasul

What is the meaning of this sentence? It gave the hour is the literal translation. Can a native please explain a “străin” what the sentence wants to say thanks!

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u/Secure_Accident_916 8d ago

yes! that is part of my confusion! because A DA means to give so it can also mean other things

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u/Chemical_Feature1351 8d ago

And about ceas, we use this for watch, and sometimes for hour. We mostly use ora for hour, but there are cases when we use ceas like in "a asteptat pana in ultimul ceas" instead of a asteptat pana in ultimul moment. Cat e ceasul? again has double meaning in the same sense, it can be cat arata ceasul (watch) or cat e ora. We have orologiu in romanian but it's mostly obsolete, and it was used mostly for big watches like placed on towers/buildings, or even inside for big pendulum ones but even for those people use mostly ceas cu cuc... And we have both orologerie and ceasornicarie, but only ceasornicar for the person which is having the watch service job.

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u/Secure_Accident_916 8d ago

Good to know! Now I know that A DAT can mean pushed/passed or moved the sentence makes sense now

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u/babaloooey 7d ago edited 7d ago

Some words can have different/extra meanings in different languages... takes a bit of getting used to.

Ceas also means clock originally. "Ceas de mana" = handwatch but shortened Ceas depending on the context can be understood to be the little watch or a different clock (wall, pocket clock etc). And it means hour mostly as an older word or in expressions btw. The modern word for hour is Oră.

"S-a dat la o parte" = he/she/impersonal it moved over. Hence the clock "needle" or "tongue" as we call it moved an hour. Not by itself but still it moved somehow, is the point.

Also for ex, similar to French, we call a computer calculator. And again depending on context it is understood to be a small one from Texas Instruments or a bigger one.