Travelers visiting Romania can learn and practice 11+ essential words and phrases here. We’ve posted the first 11 below.
Listen.
Record yourself.
Play back and compare.
(See more “Learn and Practice Tips” below!)
Why learn these Romanian Phrases?
Learn and Practice Tips
- Click the black arrow to hear the Romanian speaker.
- Click the red dot once to record yourself, click the black square to stop recording.
- When you click the black arrow again, you’ll hear the native speaker and then yourself.
- Do it several times until you sound like the Romanian speaker.
- Then “Choose a Study Mode” and test yourself with one of the Quizlet games! (You may need to adjust your Options with top right icon
.)
The First 11 Romanian Phrases
Whenever you travel to a country where you don’t speak the language, you’ll encounter situations when these words will be useful.
Let’s say, you’ve ordered your first meal in a restaurant in Romania and as the waiter serves you, you say “Mulțumiri”.
Even if the waiter knows that you don’t speak Romanian, your effort may make him smile …
And beyond “Please” and “Thank you”, basic greetings really are the staple of first words you should know in any country you visit.
And we start with the most obvious and easiest ones: “Yes” and “No”. We end with asking whether your conversations partner speaks any of the languages you may also speak.
Good Things to Know
Romanian is a Romance Language (like French, Spanish and Portuguese), which all originated from “Vulgar” or spoken Latin.
Romanian is most similar to Italian, especially because Romanian has a large number of Italian loan words.
But of the Romance languages, Romanian is the language closest in grammar to Vulgar Latin. It has three genders: Masculine, Feminine, and Neuter, and has kept the six Latin cases.
Romanian is the official language of Romania and of the neighboring Republic of Moldova.
Romanian Pronunciation Tips
In Romanian, there are a few letters that don’t exist in English, but their sounds are not that hard to learn.
Romanian pronunciation is phonetic and if you know any Italian, you’ll find that their sounds are quite similar.
Let’s start with examples from the list of phrases below.
Romanian “ț” has a “ts” sound. Examples: “Mulțumiri” and “Bună dimineaţa”.
The letter “ă” is pronounced “ah” (as in “father”). Examples: “Vă rog”, “Bună ziua!”, “Bună seara”, and others.
Romanian “r” is similar to an Italian trilled-r, (and not like an American guttural “r”).
Finally for this list, Romanian “c” has a “k” sound before “u” or “a”, and a “ch” sound (as in “cheese”) before “i” or “e”. Example: “Cu plăcere!”
Walking in the country side…
While there’ll be many opportunities to use basic greetings in Bucharest and other large Romanian cities, knowing them when you’re outside of a larger city is even more important.
As we always notice when we walk in the countryside or in smaller towns, greetings are common and even expected!
Being a visitor in Romania will make you much more welcome, when you make the effort to greet people in Romanian.
The Next 12 Romanian Phrases: “Unde este…?
In the next installment – Romanian 2 For Travel– you’ll learn to ask where the bathroom, train and bus station, bank, pharmacy etc. are located.
Even if you have a GPS enabled smart phone, it won’t tell you where the bathroom is – and you’ll certainly find plenty of opportunities to ask other “Where…?” questions. It’s also often a good way to start a conversation!