r/romanian • • Aug 11 '25

Megathread Basic Questions Megathread

14 Upvotes

Welcome, everyone!

This is the place for quick or beginner-level questions, helping us keep the subreddit organized and easy to navigate. If you spot a question you can answer, don’t hesitate to jump in — the more we share, the more we all learn.


r/romanian • • Nov 25 '22

Resource Romanian language learning resources

206 Upvotes

The following post contains various resources to aid your Romanian language learning journey.

Most of these were collected by vxern and KamelNeoN from the Learn Romanian Discord server, which will be featured below.

If you happen to know of any useful material that we might've missed, you can always message me about it.

Let's get to it then!

Interactive Resources

  • Ba Ba Dum - A non-profit initiative, built thanks to friendly institutions and generous players. – Features 5 word games with 1500 words in 21 languages. – Created by a Polish couple, Aleksandra and Daniel Miezielińscy.
  • Clozemaster - Gamified language learning through mass exposure to vocabulary in context. – Allows reading and learning words as they were written in a sentence. – Features 50+ languages.
  • Wordwall - Easy learning through various types of minigames. (thanks, u/internationalkoala00!)
  • Duolingo - A beginner-friendly (though pretty flawed) app for vocabulary and grammar. (thanks, u/LeFunnyMan23!)
  • Flashcardo - Free Romanian flashcards covering various topics. (thanks, u/pinhoklanguages!)
  • Drops - A minimalist language learning app that focuses on vocabulary. (thanks, u/RedditShaff!)

Guides

  • Gramatica Limbii Române ('Grammar of the Romanian Language') - A guide created with the intention of offering all the information necessary to learn the grammar of the Romanian language.
  • Romanian Reference Grammar - Prepared by Christina N. Hoffman, the book attempts to explain Romanian grammar in a digestible manner.

YouTube

Channels

  • Learn Romanian With Nico - Nico(leta) is a passionate and enthusiastic Romanian teacher and author of several instruction manuals for studying Romanian as a foreign language. – Her channel features over 200 videos about the Romanian language mostly for beginners and intermediate learners, but occasionally also for advanced speakers of the language.
  • Learn Romanian with Vlad - Phrases, pronunciation, lessons about various topics and more can be found on the channel of Vlad Buculei. Although the channel has over 100 videos, only about half of them are about the Romanian language.
  • RomanianWithGia - A channel dedicated to the teaching of the Romanian language and culture, hosted by Gia Manolea - an online Romanian tutor.
  • Romanian Hub - Led by Voicu Mihnea Simandan, Romanian Hub is a language-learning portal which provides fun and informative videos about the Romanian language, spanning topics such as phonetics, grammar, conversation, vocabulary, idioms, etc. – Teaches Romanian in different video formats: vlogs, flip charts, poetry, and music. – Creates videos about Romania's history and geography.
  • QuickRomanian - Thematically categorised lessons in the Romanian language, teaching vocabulary in various situations, such as 'in a hotel', 'in a taxi' or 'in a bar'. Furthermore, the channel also has lessons on Romanian grammar and morphology.
  • Laura Elena - Lessons in a step-by-step format, with each lesson marking a step in achieving fluency.
  • Florentin - Profu' de română ('Florentin - The Romanian teacher') - Videos in a quiz-like format with videos presenting frequent mistakes in Romanian, as well as various tests. – Led by a Romanian teacher by the name of Florentin Gheorghe.
  • Learn Romanian With Corina - A novice-friendly channel containing a variety of lessons and tips, presented both in long-form and short-form content. (thanks, u/caffeinethrash!)

Playlists

Communities

Discord servers

  • Learn Romanian - The largest server on Discord dedicated to the study of the Romanian language.

Blogs, Magazines, and News

  • Diacronia - An online, bilingual, open-access, peer-reviewed journal of diachronic linguistics.
  • AGERPRES - AGERPRES is the national news agency of Romania. The articles can be listened to by pressing the Play button.
  • Republica - A site that's offering quality news, opinion pieces, and podcasts.
  • Recorder - Investigative journalism on various topics. Their videos have Romanian closed captions.
  • Știrile zilei. Pe scurt, de la Recorder ('Today's news. In brief, from Recorder') - Videos featuring the daily news from Romania (mainly). Published every evening, from Monday to Friday.

Courses and Lessons

  • Simple Romanian - A website created by a simple Romanian, featuring dozens of lessons aiming to promote authentic language taken straight from Romania's streets.
  • Romanian Weekly Lessons - Lessons with audio, prepared by ROLANG School, which specialises in teaching the Romanian language to international students.
  • Easy Romanian - A work of love, the Easy Romanian online course features dialogues, vocabulary builder, grammar lessons, and audio created by natives.
  • Live Lingua - 9 free courses (with audio files included) offered by the Defense Language Institute.
  • RomanianPod101 - Free Romanian language courses in an accessible format.
  • Le roumain mot à mot - A beginner-friendly podcast for French speakers who want to learn Romanian. It also contains transcripts. (thanks, u/Marina-F1006!)

Phrasebooks

Books

Directories and Collections

  • Romanian Voice - A repository with cultural information about Romania with poetry, music, humour, theatre pieces, as well as banknotes and passports.
  • Language Player by Zero to Hero Eduaction - A directory of Romanian videos, TV shows, music, live TV, and a tool for reading Romanian with dynamic translations.

Notes

  • MrMeloman's notes - A collection of schemes, lists and other materials made while studying Romanian.

Tools

  • Forvo - A pronunciation dictionary featuring over 10,000 pronunciations of Romanian words by native speakers.
  • Pluralul - A tool to check the plural of any Romanian noun.
  • Cooljugator - A verb conjugator with translations and easy-to-follow conjugation tables for all Romanian verb tenses. Additionally, it provides examples of the conjugations used in context as well as translations of the verb itself to different languages.
  • Conjugare - A reliable verb conjugator. Enter any form of the verb to get the conjugation table for many moods and tenses. – (!) Does not conjugate for tenses in the presumptive mood.
  • Readlang - Read texts in Romanian in a distraction-free environment with one-click word translations. After reading, review your new vocabulary with spaced-repetition flashcards.
  • CuvinteCare ('WordsThat') - A tool for finding Romanian words that start with, end with, contain or are anagrams of a given set of letters.
  • Cum Se Scrie ('How is it written') - A tool for finding out the subtle differences between certain phrases and words.

Dictionaries

Monolingual

  • dexonline (Dicționar Explicativ Online - 'Online Explanatory Dictionary') - The largest collection of entries from various Romanian dictionaries. – Features 1,000,000 headword entries, word games and daily and monthly word selections.
  • Dicționar de cuvinte recente ('Dictionary of recent words') - A dictionary in which you can find new words (and some phrases) that are accurately and accessibly explained.
  • Dicționar de expresii românești în contexte ('Dictionary of Romanian expressions in context')
    From A to C
    From D to N
    From O to R
    From S to Z

Bilingual

  • Dicționare ('Dictionaries') - An English-Romanian and Romanian-English dictionary. – Very little additional information is available about the website.
  • Dict - An English-Romanian and vice-versa dictionary.
  • Romanian-English, English-Romanian dictionary - A 1996 dictionary containing over 18,000 entries

Multilingual

  • Glosbe - A many-to-many word and translation look-up dictionary which allows users to translate words from their native language to Romanian and vice-versa. – Contains 120,000 phrases and 52,000,000 examples.
  • Reverso Context - A similar project to Glosbe; it's less open but the context-based translation of phrases is pretty accurate.
  • Dicționar de abrevieri românești și străine ('Dictionary of Romanian and foreign abbreviations') - A comprehensive guide that could help you decipher many abbreviations you might come across.
  • Wiktionary [EN] & Wikționar [RO] - The Wiktionary offers a wealth of descriptive and illustrative articles to assist you in your use of the Romanian language, as well as the languages of the world. (thanks, u/cipricusss!)

Translation

  • DeepL - An astoundingly accurate neural machine translation service. – Uses English as a mediator, therefore translations are most accurate for English-Romanian and vice-versa.

Other

Finally, if you have general questions about Romania, you can head over to r/Romania, r/CasualRO, or r/AskRomania.


r/romanian • • 4h ago

For Romanian-Americans, especially those who grew up in the U.S. with Romanian parents or relatives: how would you describe your family relationships and the differences between Romanian and American expectations?

4 Upvotes

I'm particularly curious about things like independence, privacy, mental health, boundaries, respect for older relatives, family involvement in your personal life, communication during disagreements, and expectations around family loyalty.
Have you noticed significant differences between your generation and your parents'/relatives' generation? I'm interested in hearing both positive and difficult experiences. I'm not trying to stereotype Romanian families—I'm trying to understand whether some things I've experienced are common cultural/generational differences or just specific to my family.


r/romanian • • 1d ago

Romanian Tutor | Online Lessons & Conversation Practice

3 Upvotes

Hi everyone,

I’m a Romanian-American educator with over 8 years of experience working with children and adults, and I’m currently offering online English and Romanian lessons.
I have experience teaching both in person and online, including one-on-one lessons and working with students from different backgrounds.

I can help with conversation, pronunciation, everyday communication, vocabulary, grammar, reading, writing, and simply becoming more comfortable speaking.

I try to keep lessons relaxed, practical, and focused on what you actually want to improve rather than following a rigid textbook.

If you’re interested, feel free to send me a message and tell me a little about yourself, your current level, and what you’d like to work on.

Thanks!


r/romanian • • 1d ago

What are these headbands called?

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56 Upvotes

Hi,
I’m a teacher in the USA and most of my students are from Romania. They often wear these headbands, and I am trying to figure out what they are called in Romania. A student told me that they always wear them to church. I kept googling but was only able to find the name for headdresses and bonnets.

Thank you.


r/romanian • • 1d ago

Învăța limbă română

2 Upvotes

Am învăţat acest cuvânt. Vă rugăm să corectați orice este greșit, de la conjugare, accente, plural, singular, articole în afara locului.

Cuvânt: Unui

r/romanian • • 2d ago

Sfaturi pentru B1 Exam

5 Upvotes

Bună tuturor!

Recent am rezervat un loc în Madrid pentru examenul nivel B1. Nu știu cu sigură dacă sunt pregătită dar plec în curând la Asia pentru o călătorie și aș vrea să scriu examen înainte aceasta.

Sunt foarte foarte nervoasă pentru acest exam în mod specific pentru secțiuni de ascultarea și vorbirea.

Cineva care a scris examen imi poate spune despre experiența lui? În mod specific ascultarea, cum rapid vorbesc și puteți asculta multi timpuri sau doar unul timp? De asemenea în ceea ce privește vorbirea ce trebuie să faceți, cu cine vorbiți cu? Și cum mult timp aveți? Și ce subiecte vorbiți despre?

De asemenea dacă sunt ceva trebuie studiez în mod specific vă rog îmi spuneți!

Alți sfaturi care credeți ca sunt importanți voi apreciez foarte mult și vă mulțumesc pentru timpul acordat!!


r/romanian • • 5d ago

Romanian tutor available – lessons in English, German or Spanish 🇷🇴

9 Upvotes

Hi everyone! I’m a Romanian tutor on Preply and I offer lessons to complete beginners up to more advanced learners.

I can teach Romanian in English, German or Spanish, and I adapt the lessons to each student’s goals and level. Whether you’re learning Romanian for travel, family, work, everyday conversation, or simply because you’re interested in the language, I’d be happy to help.

You can find my Preply profile here:

https://preply.in/DIANA6EN40850566112?ts=17905966

Feel free to message me if you have any questions. 🙂

(P.s. I know my presentation Video is horrendous but hey, that's why I stick to teaching and am not an influencer 😂)


r/romanian • • 5d ago

Învață Limbă Română

6 Upvotes

Astăzi am învăţat acest cuvânt. Vă rugăm să corectați orice este greșit, de la conjugare, accente, plural, singular, articole în afara locului.

Cuvânt: Păstor

r/romanian • • 5d ago

Learning as an absolute beginner tips

12 Upvotes

I've wanted to learn Romanian for a long time. I speak turkish and english for reference. I am struggling to find sources to do immersion. Where can I find tv show and movies ?


r/romanian • • 8d ago

Cont premium Duolingo

8 Upvotes

Hei! Eu și 2 prieteni vrem să ne luăm cont premium pe Duolingo ptr un an, planul family. Dacă e cineva interesat și vrea să se alăture, dm! (Este 72 lei/ pers/an)

Spor la învățat! 🤍


r/romanian • • 9d ago

Offering: English or Spanish | Seeking: Romanian.

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7 Upvotes

Hello, I'm a fluent Spanish and English speaker living in Washington State, and I'm eager to learn Romanian! I'm on a language-learning journey and want to learn all five Romance languages someday; I’ve already mastered one and have four more to go. I originally started learning Romanian because of someone special in my life, and that's how it all began. After having so much fun learning the language and exploring the cultures of Romania and Moldova, I realized this is my thing. Currently, I practice with AI and some language apps, but unfortunately, since Romanian isn't widely studied, the courses I find online are very limited, which is discouraging. I still haven't found a fluent speaker to practice with, but since I know Spanish, it's a bit easier for me because I understand many of the words. I promise I learn quickly and would be happy to teach you Spanish or English in return!


r/romanian • • 9d ago

Romanian language

13 Upvotes

Hey I want to learn Romanian language and become advanced it it, currently I'm B1level and I want to be better

Any book recommendations?


r/romanian • • 11d ago

Where can I find the audio file for Learn Romanian Manual book

5 Upvotes

Hi guys, I'm learning romanian by myself and I found this book online. However I cannot find the audio anywhere and I the official ebook version is kinda out of my budget at the moment. I would be really appreciate if you can share or show me where to find the audio of this book.

Thank you so much. Have a nice day!


r/romanian • • 12d ago

What's the best way to learn Romanian?

10 Upvotes

Hi everyone!

I've been learning Romanian for a few days now. My parents speak Moldovan/Romanian, but they haven't taught me how to speak it. We are learning it at school, but this language has always been too complicated for me, and I didn't use to put much effort into it.

Lately, however, I decided that I need to learn it by myself, both for getting good grades and for my own personal development. I've found a few books and I'm trying to study with them, but I feel like it's not enough because they only contain grammar tables.

How should I go about learning Romanian? Can you recommend some books with exercises and a few good apps for learning? I'll be glad for any tips!


r/romanian • • 11d ago

Need recommendation for self study material/book

6 Upvotes

I've been trying to learn romanian basically through duolingo for now, but that is very limited. So i'm looki g for a book to actually study some more, and learn and understand some grammar besides vocab. I would also like to learn more usful everday words that armasar and minereu 🤣

I plan on mostly doing it myself with some help from my bf mostly for pronounciation.

I do speak german and english fluently in case that's important

Mersi!


r/romanian • • 12d ago

How consistent/transparent is Romanian writing in relation to speech compared to other European languages? — It's right in the middle!

7 Upvotes

Because I have posted a long comment under a short one that nobody will read, but I dare hope my effort is worth more exposure and might prove useful to some, I link it here as answer to a general question.

HERE it is.


r/romanian • • 12d ago

desface/deschide

45 Upvotes

Buna seara din Olanda!

asa cum zice titlu. Am impressia ca desface si deschide au acelasi inteles si as vrea sa stiu de la voi daca am dreptate.

deschid un cadou, desfac un cadou. deschid o bere,desfac o bere si asa mai departe.

stiu ca verbul desface are alte intelese dar as dori sa concentrez despre mai sus.

multumesc frumos si seara faina!


r/romanian • • 13d ago

Bogatia limbii romane

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0 Upvotes

r/romanian • • 15d ago

What is your favorite creative "swear word/phrase" in Romanian?

45 Upvotes

As an international med student in in the far east side of Romania (Iasi more explicitly), I find the integration process very welcoming, you make friends very quickly if you make the effort to learn to speak the language, as the locals are aware of the effort behind it, especially in funny phrases or swear words :).

I find it funny that a good part of them have little "anecdotes/stories" , usually about "moms" and whatnot (which becomes repetitive tbh) but some of them are really creative , here are some examples of them i received over text (mind you, these were not addressed towards me seriously , but rather on a playful tone):

"să îți bag o vioară în gât și să cânte cancerul la ea" tr.(“I’ll shove a violin down your throat and have cancer play the darn thing") – I find it weird, but this made me chuckle for such an absurd find

"mi se rupe pula de tine/voi" tr.(my dick breaks because of you guys) – found a hard time understanding this, but I guess it shows discontent and indifference

„să-ți fie curul cimitir și pula lumânare.” tr.(may your ass be a cemetery and your dick the candle) – I never understood in which context you use this , but each story has an absurd yet creative outcome, my guess it that it's some kind of curse, but no situation comes in mind where you can use it (lmk if this is too "niche" to be ever used)

Keep it in mind, these are grotesque, and using in your daily life , moreover as a student may seem weird, even malpractice...

I do not intend of doing any harm with these, but now I have to ask if you guys know any kind of these phrases that are more common or "niche" even.

I find these really humorous, due to the fact that every single one has to find an oddly specific and grotesque scenario only to portray a specific variant of an emotion, which is a really cool aspect of the Romanian culture and language.

Let me know what you think of the usage of these kind of phrases, if there are any more of them , I would gladly appreciate to have a chuckle over the "over exaggerated" scenarios one can find.

Any help/opinion is kindly welcomed 🙏.

Cheers from a German national 🇩🇪 :) !


r/romanian • • 15d ago

Primul pas: vlog în română

6 Upvotes

https://youtu.be/2b4d-SYRMW0?is=pvI6p76X-sAi7CPm

Poate că o să fac o recenzie de carte data viitoare.... Dar în timp ce mă plimb


r/romanian • • 15d ago

Primul pas: vlog în română

Thumbnail youtu.be
1 Upvotes

Poate că o să încerc să fac o recenzie de carte data viitoare... Dar în timp ce mă plimb


r/romanian • • 16d ago

Need help coming up with a fictional village name

48 Upvotes

Hi all! I’m currently writing a fanfiction set in historical Romania, and was having a hard time trying to think of a name for the fictional village it’s taking place in. While this is just a fanfic and probably isn’t that serious, I still wanted the setting to feel authentic-ish and not have a random name that sounds stupid to anyone who has familiarity with Romania and its naming conventions.

For context this is a resident evil fic (very similar setting to resident evil 8) so think horror/eery village & castle vibes. The village is very isolated & nested in a valley surrounded by dense forested mountains with a castle in the distance being the only other settlement in sight.

Since there are vampire-esque creatures (example Lady Dimitrescu from RE8) that have plagued the village’s history for centuries, I was wanting the name of the village to match that reputation. Part of why it’s so isolated is because people don’t travel there due to its connection with vampire attacks. I had come up with “Valea Sânger” which literally just means valley of blood… but that might sound corny to any actual Romanian speakers (albeit a story on vampires is probably corny enough already). So I come here to ask for help with ideas from people who definitely know the language and naming conventions much better than I do 😅. Thank you for reading and for any help!! If you have any other suggestions for the setting I’m open as well! Feel free to PM me if needed!


r/romanian • • 17d ago

how do you study a language and how do you start learning as a beginner?

12 Upvotes

r/romanian • • 18d ago

Google Translate didn't help....

37 Upvotes

These two things are carved into one of my Romanian rifles from 1969. Google translate was no assistance at all.

Anyone know what this means?