RomanianPod101.com Blog

A sentence without a verb is like a bird without a nest. It wants to fly around and express itself, but without a foundation to rely upon, it's limited. How's your knowledge of Romanian verbs? We understand—the grammar is no joke. You don't really want to learn verbs when you could be enjoying Romanian TV shows and music. But if you never end up paying attention to Romanian verbs, you'll find yourself lost for words all the time. Advanced learners need to learn the grammatical nuances, as well as just the plain old nuances of the lexicon itself. Beginner learners need to nail down a foundation of basic words for everyday use.Enough chit-chat. In this article, you’re going to learn 100 Romanian verbs, every one of them shown... Show more

Romanian has a lot of personal pronouns. Significantly more, in fact, than other related languages in Europe. Nobody knows who came up with this system, but it's not going away anytime soon. Are you ready to rise to the challenge? You should be, because although the Romanian pronoun system is complex, native speakers use it without thinking. If it was too unwieldy, it would have been pared down and simplified over time. We'll be here to guide you as well. We’ll provide a couple of tricks and links that you might not find in other resources.And besides, it's not like you can just ignore this. You already know quite a bit of it from just a few simple introductory phrases! Pronouns are so integral to the Romanian language that... Show more

Do you remember the moment you fell in love with languages? Do you desire to learn or advance in Romanian quickly and effectively? Then you need a Romanian tutor. A common question that first-time language-learners ask is "Where do I begin?" The answer? Guidance. For native English-speakers who want to learn Asian languages, for example, timelines provided by the U.S. Foreign Service Institute can appear discouraging. However, defeating these odds is not unheard of. If you want to beat the odds yourself, one of the best learning options is a subscription to Premium PLUS from Innovative Language. As an active Premium PLUS member of JapanesePod101.com and KoreanClass101.com myself, I have an enjoyable experience learning at an... Show more

You can think of language as being composed of LEGO blocks. Imagine you're building a skyscraper, for instance. Since you have the advantage of working with toys instead of real steel, one strategy would be to build each floor individually and then stick them all together. It turns out you can do the same thing in language learning.  Before you ever get into a situation in which you have to speak Romanian "in the wild," you can piece together a lot of different patterns and chunks and learn them individually. Here enters Romanian word order and a host of other crucial Romanian grammar elements.  When it's time to speak or write, you can then draw on these stored memories to quickly and efficiently speak correct Romanian without... Show more

The number-one piece of advice most people have for those considering a trip to Romania is to learn some of the language. Check that one off the list. You're already interested in Romanian, we know that. But here's our number-one piece of advice for learning Romanian for travel: Learn about the time in Romanian. Learning some numbers in Romanian, and the dates, is a great accomplishment, but they only get you so far. Time covers all kinds of situations at once: bus schedules, airport departures, check-in times...everything you're likely to do as a tourist! This article won't stop there, either. This is your one-stop solution to learning everything you need to know about time in Romanian, from stopping someone on the street... Show more

Being outside in Romania is great—except when you’re lost. Wouldn’t it be great if you could ask somebody for help? Or even just ask where the McDonald’s is? That, of course, is the obvious benefit of knowing how to talk about directions in Romanian. (Not the McDonald’s part, the not-getting-lost part.) Did you know, though, that mastering directions in Romanian can level-up your whole command of the language? Think about it: you’ve got new vocabulary, new sentence patterns, and even new conversation starters, just from one topic. How much do you know already about directions in Romanian? Table of Contents Basic Cultural Notes and Phrases Learn the Romanian Compass Points City Vocabulary and Reference Points ... Show more

If you’ve got no nouns, you’ve got problems. Circumlocution is an important skill, but when it comes down to it, it’s really hard to do with certain things. Try describing your head or your manager without knowing those words, and you’ll see just what a challenge you’ve jumped into. This article is here to help. No fluff, just vocab—one hundred of the Romanian nouns you need most. Read through this article just one time and see how much you can pick up! Table of Contents Time The Body The Family Working Life School Days At the Restaurant Food and Drink Mealtimes Transportation Technology Around the Home Conclusion 1. Time If you haven’t learned the right... Show more

If you know any Romanians, then you might have asked them to teach you a couple of Romanian words in the past. Most people jump straight to the curse words, which are always good for a laugh. But there's another class of words that can have a much better effect. Those are Romanian compliments. A foreigner who knows how to speak a little Romanian is not a rarity anymore. But someone who knows how to speak Romanian well is hard to come across. How about someone who can pay natural, beautiful compliments in Romanian? Nearly impossible to find. However, that can be you. All you have to do is read this article. Because you can't just rush into Romanian. It's different enough from English that some things you'd expect to transfer over... Show more

Are you having a bad day in Bucharest? Crabby in Cluj? Testy in Timișoara? You might want to take a deep breath and let it out. Or not. Because sometimes it’s really necessary to put your anger into words and tell others how you really feel. Or suppose somebody's harassing you. You don't want to give them any kind of leeway—you want them gone, and pronto. So now is the perfect time for you to review (or learn for the first time) how to express your anger in Romanian with some angry words and phrases you can use. We're not going to get too explicit here. Learning some mild insults, sentence patterns about anger, and maybe some more serious insults is good enough. Anything you want to express with these phrases is going to come across... Show more

There’s a lot to be said for being able to make good small talk in another language. Conversations can start up and keep going indefinitely with the right people. But what can you talk about? Perhaps you’ve tried talking about something like the weather, or food, but didn’t get terribly far. Or perhaps you’ve already met someone in Romania and gotten along with them, but you don’t know what to talk about whenever you hang out. The truth is, all you really need is this list. For starters, anyway, as you begin learning how to wish someone a happy birthday in Romanian and similar best wishes in Romanian. Take a look at these different situations. They all represent life events, big or small, that can be the topic of a great conversation.... Show more