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Lesson Transcript

Pronunciation #4 Difficult Romanian Pronunciations
Eric: Hi everyone, I’m Eric, and welcome back to RomanianPod101.com. This is Pronunciation, Lesson 4 - Difficult Romanian Pronunciations.
Mihai: Bună ziua tuturor! Hi, everyone, I’m Mihai! So we’re progressing quickly with our pronunciation lessons, aren’t we?
Eric: Yes, we can almost say anything we want now in Romanian.
Mihai: So let’s keep moving.
Eric: In this lesson you’re going to learn how to pronounce the diphthongs and triphthongs in Romanian, and how we read diphthongs and the hiatus.
Mihai: Let’s start with diphthongs and triphthongs
Eric: A diphthong is a juncture of two vowels within the same syllable and a triphthong is a juncture of three vowels in a syllable. How does this affect pronunciation?
Mihai: The main characteristic of the diphthongs and triphtongs is that we pronounce them in one breath, and together the vowels lose their individual vocal characteristics, making a brand new sound.
Eric: It’s magic!
Mihai: (laughs) No, it’s just simple phonetics. And for people who like to know the phonetics, the first or last sound in the diphthong becomes a semivowel, because it loses a half of its vocal quality.
Eric: And for a triphthong?
Mihai: The first and last sounds become semivowels because they lose half of their vowel quality.
Eric: Anything else we should know?
Mihai: There are two types of diphthongs – descendant and ascendant.
Eric: The ascendant diphthong is when the semivowel comes first, and descendant is when the semivowel is the second sound. Are there any other rules that can help us out?
Mihai: We add - u and -i after each Romanian semivowel, and we get the descendant diphthongs. Only the combination U U is not a diphthong.
Eric: That I can remember!
Mihai: So we have ai, au, ei, eu, ii, iu, ou, ăi, ău, âi, and âu.
Eric: Can we hear some examples?
Mihai: Sure, we’ll start with -a and - i, which make ai like in mai for example.
Eric: This means “may”
Mihai: Next a and - u. These make au, which is in August
Eric: “August”
Mihai: E and I, these make ei as in lei
Eric: “Lions”
Mihai: U and i, making ui as in pui
Eric: “chicken”
Mihai: o and u, ou as in nouraş
Eric: “little cloud.”
Mihai: It seems difficult in theory, but is rather easy in practice right?
Eric: Well yes. I guess the best way to get it down is to practice what you hear from native speakers.
Mihai: Absolutely. Now take a look at the ascendant diphthongs.
Eric: A semivowel plus a vowel right?
Mihai: That’s correct Eric.
Eric: Shall we give our listeners a list?
Mihai: Of course. Here we have e, i, o, and u followed by a vowel. Ea, eo, ia, ie, io, iu, oa, ua, and uă.
Eric: Let’s go through some examples.
Mihai: ea as in dimineaţă
Eric: “morning”
Mihai: ia as in iarnă
Eric: “winter”
Mihai: oa as in oameni
Eric: “humans”
Mihai: And the last one is ua ziua.
Eric: “the day.” So we just learned all the Romanian diphthongs?
Mihai: Yes, these are the diphthongs that exist in Romanian grammar books, but new diphthongs can be found in some loan words.
Eric: : Alright, now let’s talk about triphthongs.
Mihai: A triphthong always comes in this order - semivowel + vowel + semivowel.
Eric: Do you have an example for us?
Mihai: Sure! There are seven Romanian triphthongs. They are Eau, eai, oai, iai, iau, iei, and ioa.
Eric: You just sounded like a theater student. What are some examples, Mihai?
Mihai: Eau as in Vreau
Eric: “I want”
Mihai: eai- as in spuneai
Eric: “you were saying”
Mihai: iai- as in scriai
Eric: “you were writing”
Mihai: iau -
Eric: “I take”
Mihai: iei- as in miei
Eric: “lambs”
Mihai: ioa- as in inimioară
Eric: Which means “little heart.” Great! So we’re done with the triphthongs. Let’s move on to the hiatus. This is when there are two vowels close to each other and they both preserve their vocal quality. In other words, they both keep their original sound, right?
Mihai: Yes, exactly.
Eric: Let’s hear some examples.
Mihai: filosofie , fi-lo-so fi-e
Eric: “philosophy”
Mihai: ştiinţă, şti-in-ţă
Eric: “science”
Mihai: Eroină, e-ro-i-nă
Eric: “heroine”
Mihai: violincel, vi-o-lon-cel
Eric: “cello”
Mihai: As for the pronunciation, please keep your mouth open longer than usual.
Eric: Okay, is there anything else before we go?
Mihai: Yes, one last thing. In some cases, the hiatus can cause difficulties and mistakes in pronunciation.
Eric: For example?
Mihai: In Romanian we say A-us-tria and not Aus-tri-a.
Eric: "Austria."
Mihai: na-ţi-u-ne and not na-ţiu-ne.
Eric: "nation.” So the mistakes consist of merging the sounds of the vowels in hiatus so that a diphthong is formed.
Mihai: Which leads to the words being mispronounced.
Eric: That just about does it for this lesson. Premium members, use the review track to perfect your pronunciation.
Mihai: It’s available in the premium section of the website,
Eric: the learning center,
Mihai: and through iTunes via the premium feed.
Eric: The Review Track gives you vocabulary and phrases followed by a short pause so you can repeat the words aloud.
Mihai: It’s the best way to get good fast!
Eric: Okay. Thanks for listening everyone, bye!
Mihai: La revedere!

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