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Hallelujah! means something else in Romanian

Publié le par Charly C.

Hello all!

This is a short entry, and I want to talk about a cultural shock I had last year, regarding the use of the word "Hallelujah!"

In English, you'd say "Hallelujah!" when something good happened, or when something you hoped for turned out the way you wanted. 

You'd sometimes say "Hallelujah!" to perhaps mean 'Finally!"

In Romanian, though, "Hallelujah!" is used to mean "What's done is done."

It is usually said in bad situations - when you lose or break something, especially something expensive or that you cared about, for instance. 

So, last year, I shook the sheet on the window. Below, at the ground floor there is a commercial space and they have some sort of shades, made of metal, that stand out and away from the building, in a horizontal position. 

If things fall there, they can't be easily retrieved. 

My sweatpants were wrapped in the sheet, and I grabbed everything. 

Before I could do anything, my pants fell from inside the sheet and onto the shade-thing of the commercial space. 

A told their mother, and her reply was "Hallelujah!" 

The shock! the horror! I was wondering, why is she so happy about my misfortune?!? 

It appears she wasn't: she was just telling me to forget about my pants. 

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