RomanianPod101.com Blog

Nearly every country has a holiday dedicated to dragoste (love) and romance. In the U.S. and other Western nations, this manifests as Valentine’s Day; in South Korea, there are twelve separate love days celebrated each year! And in Romania, there is the traditional celebration of Dragobete Day (often called Romanian Valentine’s Day). This is a unique holiday centered on romance and the beginning of primăvară (spring). In this article, you’ll learn how this holiday got started, what celebrations look like today, and more useful Dragobete information. 1. What is Dragobete? In Romania, February 24 marks the unofficial beginning of spring as well as the annual love celebration called Dragobete. This traditional holiday lost its... Show more

YouTube is an absolute treasure chest for language learning. With several weeks’ worth of video being uploaded every minute, you'll literally never be able to run out of things to watch in any major language. And even though Romanian isn't really a major language, you can still use the web's number-one media hub to deeply immerse yourself in Romanian culture. As you learn Romanian, YouTube will allow you to catch up on all the major trends in the country without ever leaving your hometown! Some channels, though, are definitely better than others. Here in this article, we've assembled the ten best YouTube channels for Romanian learners, taking into account a variety of preferred learning styles. Do you want instructional videos,... Show more

The Romanian language never makes it onto the lists of the world’s easiest languages. Instead, it’s treated as a curiosity because of its rather different grammatical features compared to other languages in the same family. After all, it’s certainly rather different from Spanish and Portuguese! As an English-speaker, you might be wondering: "Is it hard to learn Romanian?"  While aspects of the language may be difficult when you first start out, think of the possibilities that open up if you do learn it. Romania offers more adventure to some people than the more frequently visited countries in Western Europe. It’s a great destination, and since you’ll get Moldovan basically for free, learning Romanian opens a good number of doors. ... Show more

Would you call yourself a perfectionist? Language-learning doesn’t really suit itself to perfectionism. Languages change in so many ways all the time, and there’s really no way to define "perfect" speech. On the flip side, though, you do have to pay attention to some rules in order to avoid the most common mistakes Romanian-learners make. Trying to come up with Romanian—written or spoken—without being aware of the rules of the language is a surefire way to ingrain bad habits and make your communication with natives less effective. In this article, you’ll see an overview of the classic learner mistakes in Romanian, as well as what you can do to stay far away from them. Table of Contents Make the Right Sounds ... Show more

There’s a shortcut to Romanian fluency. Well, not really. But there’s a great framework that can get you having comfortable conversations very quickly. You see, people tend to have the same conversations with language-learners over and over. You introduce yourself, say where you’re from, and then probably ask why they’re learning that particular language. And questions, naturally, are a big part of that. The whole conversation is a big back-and-forth of questions and answers. If you want to get yourself speaking automatically in conversations, then you should take a look at the most common Romanian questions and answers. You’ll impress your conversation partner, and with that comes great motivation to keep pushing yourself to... Show more

Why take a Romanian language proficiency test? Well, let me paint you a picture: From the moment you laid eyes on the mountains, villages, cities, and beaches of Romania, you knew it had to be yours. The language took some time to learn, of course, and there were ups and downs along the way. But now you speak Romanian quite well. You read the latest news in Romanian, you have a hilarious Romanian group chat going, and you know more Romanian bands than the locals do. And as luck would have it, one day you hear about a job that you’d love to do—right in your favorite Romanian city. The only catch? The hiring manager won’t even look at your application if you don’t have some kind of Romanian language certificate.Now, this... Show more

Human beings are excellent at noticing patterns. Have you ever seen shapes in the clouds, or noticed "faces" in electrical sockets? That’s your subconscious pattern-matching system working around the clock. That said, if you went and looked at some text in, say, Waray-Waray (a language of the Philippines), you’d probably give up trying to understand it after a short while. In Romanian, though, you start noticing patterns. For example, you may see words that look an awful lot like words in English (or other European languages you might be familiar with). That effect becomes ten times more powerful when you can compare each Romanian sentence structure and pattern to an English translation. You start to quickly see where the... Show more

Are you the type to show off? Maybe you met someone who went to Europe for a trip and you casually ask them, “Did you learn much of the local language?” This is really just an excuse for you to show off your Romanian skills. That’s fine. We get it. There’s always a danger, though, that that person happens to have Romanian grandparents or experience living in a Romanian-speaking environment through an internship or similar. If you want to impress, you need to bring your A-game. And that means using the correct and accurate adverb in Romanian for whatever you need to describe, providing flavor in just the right place. Table of Contents Adverbs In Degrees Telling The Truth and Making Predictions Adverbs of Location ... Show more

You asked, so we provided—easy-to-follow instructions on how to set up your electronic devices to write in Romanian! We’ll also give you a few excellent tips on how to use this keyboard, as well as some online and app alternatives if you prefer not to set up a Romanian keyboard. Table of Contents Why it’s Important to Learn to Type in Romanian Setting up Your Computer and Mobile Devices for Romanian How to Activate an Onscreen Keyboard on Your Computer How to Change the Language Settings to Romanian on Your Computer Activating the Romanian Keyboard on Your Mobile Phone and Tablet Romanian Keyboard Typing Tips How to Practice Typing Romanian 1. Why it’s Important to Learn to Type in Romanian Learning a new language is... Show more

Romanian verb conjugations are way, way easier than they might appear to be. That's good, too—because they look pretty bad! If you want to learn to speak good Romanian, you definitely can't ignore the conjugations. English doesn't have a lot of conjugations, but you still notice the mistake if someone says "He go to the library." Multiply that by the numerous Romanian conjugations, and it can seem, at first glance, like the language is a minefield just waiting to trip you up.In reality, though, you just need to learn a couple of key patterns. Quite a few of the conjugations are rarely used these days, and in casual conversations, you'll hear the same conjugations over and over again. Table of Contents What Do You Need to... Show more