Romanian is a wonderful language and if you have a good ear it can be fairly easy to speak. At least easy enough where they can tell what you tried to say.
Romanian is a mix of Italian, French, Spanish Portuguese and Catalan. Thus, they have a lot of similar words from these languages, so if you speak any of those, then you have a decided advantage of figuring out what they say.
As well, there are a few dialects of Romanian, but the following examples are of the most widely used Romanian.
In my limited time with people from Romania, I have found many of them also speak very good English, French, Italian and Spanish as well as some Slavic languages, but not much.
If you're traveling to Romania, then do yourself a favor and get a Romania Travel Guide. Lonely Planet has a very good one.A few tips to remember.
The "ci" and "ce" sounds like a "ch", as in check or chest.
"che" and "chi" produces a "k" sound. As in kid or kite.
The "i" at the end of words is not pronounced.
Also, they roll their R's, as do the other similar languages like Spanish, for example.
English | Romanian | Phonetic |
Hello | Salut | Saa-loot |
How are you? or How's it going? | Ce Faci? | Chay fotch? |
Good | Bine | Bee-nay |
And how are you? | E tu e faci? | ee two chay fotch? |
I Like You | Îni plache de tine | Un plah-tch day tee-nay |
You smell good | Mirosi bine | Mee-ro-shee be-nay |
You are beautiful | esti frumoasa | Esh-t Froo-maa-saa |
What are you doing tonight? | Ce faci în seara asta? | Ch-ay fatch en say-arra ah-stah? |
Do you want to drink something? | Vrei sa bei ceva? | Vray-ee sah bay-ee chay vah? |
Yes | Da | Dah |
No | Nu | Nu |
If you're not drinking something with me, I'll go home and cry | Dacă nu vrei să bei ceva cu, mine, plec acasă si plȃng | Use your best guess |
Good Bye | Ce faci în seara asta? | Ch-ay fatch en say-arra ah-stah? |
The nice thing about the Romanian language is how happy they are to teach the Romanian language as they are often good English Speakers themselves. And I can't stress enough, that if you're going traveling in Romania, get a Romania Travel Guide. Lonely Planet's is good and it has some basic Romain Translations.
There are Romanian swears and derogatory phrases I intentionally left out. If you are interested in that, feel free to contact us on Twitter or the old fashioned way and send an email.
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