Learning to Pronounce the Romanian Alphabet

Learn the building blocks of the Romanian language: the thirty-one letters of the Romanian alphabet

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Lesson Transcript

Pronunciation 1: Learning to Pronounce the Romanian Alphabet

Eric: Hi everyone, Eric here, and welcome to RomanianPod101.com. This is Pronunciation Series, Lesson 1 – Learning to Pronounce the Romanian Alphabet.

Mihai: Bună ziua! Sunt Mihai. Thanks again for being here with us for this pronunciation lesson.

Eric: What’s our focus in this lesson, Mihai?

Mihai:We’ll talk about the Romanian alphabet.

Eric: It will be like learning poetry.

Mihai: Yes, Romanian is such a poetic language, don’t you think?

Eric: Absolutely. That’s why I’m studying it!

Mihai: In this lesson, we will use literary Romanian.

Eric: That’s what we’ll hear on television, on the radio, and in cities. When a friend of mine travelled in Romania she said she couldn’t hear any differences between the regions. It was like everyone spoke the same way!

Mihai: Well, you need more time until you can differentiate the accents. The words are the same, with some very small exceptions. The only difference is the pronunciation.

Eric: That’s good news.

Mihai: Why?

Eric: Because everyone will understand me if I speak Romanian with my American accent.

Mihai: If you stick to literary Romanian, you won’t have any problem communicating, that’s for sure.

Eric: As long as I manage to order food, I’m happy!

Mihai: Eric, do you remember how many letters there are in the Romanian alphabet?

Eric: 31... from what I remember.

Mihai: That’s correct. 31, including the K, Y, W and Q that are used for foreign names and loan words.

Eric: Those are words of foreign origin. For example, “yoga” is written with a “y.”

Mihai: Okay, let’s get into it. We need some positive energy to get through the alphabet in one lesson. So we have 31 letters, called graphemes, but overall 33 sounds, called phonemes.

Eric: Some letters might have two or more different pronunciations. It depends on where they are positioned in a word.

Mihai: That sounds complicated, but it will be a lot easier once we have a go at it. So, let’s go through our letters one by one.

Eric: Wow, it sounds like my first day in school!

Mihai: Good, so let’s start: A-Ă-Â-B

Mihai: C-D-E-F-G

Mihai: H-I-Î-J-K-L

Mihai: M-N-O-P

Mihai: Q-R-S-Ș

Mihai: T-Ț-U-V

Mihai: W-X-Y-Z. That sounded really nice, don’t you think?

Eric: Yes, and if you repeat these like a mantra every day, you’ll get the hang of it soon.

Mihai: Repeat it while you’re doing your morning yoga exercises.

Eric: Or while eating your morning yogurt.

Mihai: So it’s time to get to work on our alphabet. Or, as it’s known, A-Ă-Â-B-C-D

Eric: Can we hear some words starting with these letters?

Mihai: Of course, except we can’t give an example with the Â, as in “România”, because this letter never comes at the beginning or at the end of the word. In Romanian we call this from A.”

Eric: Alright, Let’s keep that in mind and start with A

Mihai: A, aaaaa, albină.

Eric: This means “Bee”

Mihai: ă, ăăăăă, ăsta.

Eric: Meaning “This”

Mihai: â, âââââ, râu. is between the letter r and u, in the middle of the word.

Eric: This means “River.” Now on to the letter B.

Mihai: B, bbbb, banană.

Eric: “Banana.” Now C.

Mihai: C, ccccc, casă,

Eric: “home.”

Mihai For C we have two more sounds. k, chimie.

Eric: “chemistry”

Mihai: And chhh ciocolată

Eric: “chocolate.” One letter, three different sounds.

Mihai: Yes, cccc, k, and ccchhh, depending on which letter follows c. We’ll learn about that, don’t worry.

Eric: Okay. Now D

Mihai: D, ddddd, delicios

Eric: “Delicious.”

Mihai: Moving on, now we’ll cover E -F -G -H

Eric: What are some examples with E?

Mihai: E, eeeee, elefant.

Eric: “Elephant.”

Mihai: Sometimes e is pronounced as ye. Eu

Eric: The pronoun “I.” We’ll learn more about it later on. Now, F.

Mihai: F, ffffffff, foc.

Eric: That’s “fire.” G

Mihai: G, gggggg galben.

Eric: “Yellow.”

Mihai: G, ghiozdan,

Eric: “backpack”

Mihai: Gggggggii, gimnastică

Eric: “Gymnastics.” Again, we have the same letter, with three different sounds.

Mihai: That’s right. C and G behave the same way, changing their pronunciation depending on the letter that follows.

Eric: Okay. Now, do we have any words with h?

Mihai: H..hhhhh Hotel.

Eric: That’s the word for “hotel.” And now on with the alphabet.

Mihai: i -î –j- k -l Let’s start with I, iiiiiii, ieri.

Eric: “yesterday.”

Mihai: î îîîîîî început

Eric “Beginning.” Now a word with J, please.

Mihai: J jjjjj Joc

Eric: “Game”

Mihai: K kkkkk Karate

Eric: “Karate,” That sounds like the C we heard just before, doesn’t it?

Mihai: Casa, karate, k... kkkk. Yes, now we have the same sound from a different letter. We will learn when to use each of them another time. Just remember that the sound can be written with a c or with a k.

Eric: Now a word with L, please.

Mihai: L, lllllll, lac,

Eric: the word for “lake.” So now we have to see m-n-o-p-q-r

Mihai: M, mmmmmmm mâine

Eric: This means “tomorrow”. Next, some examples with N

Mihai: N, nnnnn, noapte

Eric: “night. Next, O

Mihai: O, ooooo, ocean

Eric: Ocean. P

Mihai: Pe, ppppp, pământ.

Eric: “Earth.” Q

Mihai: Q, qqqqqq, Qatar

Eric: That sounds like the C and K doesn’t it?

Mihai: Casa, karate and Qatar... kkkk. Yes, again we have same sound with a different letter.

Eric: Next?

Mihai: R... rrrrrrrr

Eric: I just love the Romanian R!

Mihai: As in rational?

Eric: “Rational!” It sounds so sharp and precise in Romanian!

Mihai: It’s true! So now we have to see S-Ș-T-Ț-U

Eric. How about a word with S.

Mihai: Es. sssssss... stea

Eric: “Star.”

Mihai: Ș, șșșșșșș, șarpe

Eric: “snake.” Sounds like you’re trying to quiet down a room.

Mihai: Te, ttt, taina

Eric: “Mystery.” Nice word. Next...

Mihai: Ț, țțțțț, țară

Eric: “Country.”

Mihai: U, uuuuu, urmă.

Eric: “Trace.” A word with V, please.

Mihai: V, vvvv, vin

Eric: “Wine,” So now we have to see w-x-y-z

Mihai: dublu W, wwww, watt-

Eric: “Watt.” Sounds like the v from the previous letter.

Mihai: Yes. Again, we have two letters and one sound. Another way of pronouncing the w is uuuu as in “William” or “weekend.”

Eric: Wait, those are English words.

Mihai: Yes and they’re pronounced the same way in Romanian as in English. So we won’t say Viliam or vikend.

Eric: Meaning you keep the foreign pronunciation if the word is a loan word.

Mihai: As close as possible, anyway.

Eric: Alright, next we have X.

Mihai: This grapheme is pronounced in two ways, CS and GZ. So basically it’s a combination of the C and S or G and Z.

Eric: One letter and two ways of pronouncing it.

Mihai: first we have CS, CS and the example Xenofob

Eric: “Xenophobe.”

Mihai: GZ. GZ, exemplu.

Eric: Meaning “Example.” What about the Y?

Mihai: That’s an easy one. It has the same pronunciation as the vowel i. iiiiii..

Eric: It’s also used for loan words and international proper names.

Mihai: Yes, like Yakuza.

Eric: Japanese gangster! So you started with cuisine and yoga and you end up with a dangerous word. Anyway... last we have Z.

Mihai: Zet, zzzzz, zgomot

Eric. “noise.”

Mihai: But we’re not finished yet. So hold on a little bit more.

Eric: How come we’re not finished? We covered the whole Romanian alphabet.

Mihai: Yes, but we should give more information about the letters with diacritical marks.

Eric: A letter with a diacritical mark is a letter with a certain type of sign. The sign can be placed above or below the letter and gives information about how the letter should be pronounced.

Mihai: Romanian language has five letters of this kind, Ă, , another Î, Ș and Ț. The two letters and the Î have accents above the letter. Ș and Ț have a comma under the letter.

Eric: Why is it important to know all this, Mihai?

Mihai: First of all, we will know how to pronounce these letters so we won’t confuse them with A, I, S and T.

Eric: Ok, that just about does it for this lesson. Don't forget that you can leave us a comment on this lesson.