Looking for Practical Advice and Feedback for Romanian, Please

Ask specific questions about your target languages. Beginner questions welcome!
daveintheuk
Posts: 1
Joined: Thu Sep 22, 2022 10:48 am
Languages: English (N), Romanian (Beginner)
x 3

Looking for Practical Advice and Feedback for Romanian, Please

Postby daveintheuk » Thu Sep 22, 2022 11:15 am

I am a native English speaker.

I am striving to learn Romanian. My plan is be fluent in both reading, writing, and speaking Romanian.

I started serious study, around two months ago. I am averaging two to four hours a day, finding the experience enjoyable.

I keep a journal, using OneNote: Contains my own notes, snippets of useful information and dialogue etc.

For online resources, I am using:
- RomanianPOD101
- Clozemaster
- Anki
- YouTube channels
- Romanian language radio, tv stations
- Romanian language news websites

For reading resources, I am referencing:
- Romanian Verb Handbook (R. Feldstein);
- Romanian: An Essential Grammar (R. Gonczol); and
- Romanian Grammar (D. Cojocaru)

The challenges I currently face:
- A structure: I have not been able to find a reliable structure or learning pathway/plan. For context, the French/German languages have GCSE / A-Level resources/exams and frameworks which help a learner.
- Study groups / contact: There do not seem to be that many English speaking people interested in learning Romanian

If anyone could provide me with guidance/feedback, this would be appreciated; I am beginning to struggle due to lack of structure.

Many thanks
3 x

User avatar
AroAro
Green Belt
Posts: 355
Joined: Tue Sep 01, 2020 12:57 pm
Languages: • Native - Polish
• Certified - C1: French, Italian, Romanian; B2: English, German
• Estimate - B2: Russian; B1: Bulgarian
• Learning - Czech, Hebrew
• Dabbled in - eo, la, uk, sw, lt, oc
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... d80b60a5e9
x 1792

Re: Looking for Practical Advice and Feedback for Romanian, Please

Postby AroAro » Fri Sep 23, 2022 7:34 am

I'm not sure if my feedback will be useful for you because I used mainly French and Italian based courses/grammars. It's true that there are probably no Romanian course in any language that would take you from A1 to C1. That's why for Romanian I first went through Assimil Le Roumain Sans Peine to gain some basic notions and vocab in the language and only then did I start reading a grammar book (actually two, in Italian) to consolidate what I learned via Assimil. For me personally it would be hard to read first about grammar without any previous exposure to the language through a structured course, even a beginner one. I think there are Romanian courses in Colloquial and Teach Yourself series, so maybe you could give them a try?

Regarding exams/frameworks, you'll find here the link to Insitutul Limbii Române with examples of tests (including audio) ranging from A1 all the way to C2.
3 x
corrections are welcome

Caromarlyse
Green Belt
Posts: 387
Joined: Fri Dec 06, 2019 2:31 pm
Languages: English (N), French (C1-ish), German (B2/C1-ish), Russian (B1-ish), Portuguese (B1-ish), Welsh (complete beginner), Spanish (in hibernation)
(All levels estimates and given as a guide only)
x 1611

Re: Looking for Practical Advice and Feedback for Romanian, Please

Postby Caromarlyse » Fri Sep 23, 2022 1:15 pm

I do not learn Romanian, but I have found it useful in the past to search for what universities offer by way of courses and see which materials they use. UCL have this: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/ssees/evening-courses/romanian. It shows you the material they use at beginner level, plus a summary of the syllabi at all levels. You could always consider signing up if you were interested in meeting others - all classes seem to be online.
2 x

User avatar
Iversen
Black Belt - 4th Dan
Posts: 4768
Joined: Sun Jul 19, 2015 7:36 pm
Location: Denmark
Languages: Monolingual travels in Danish, English, German, Dutch, Swedish, French, Portuguese, Spanish, Catalan, Italian, Romanian and (part time) Esperanto
Ahem, not yet: Norwegian, Afrikaans, Platt, Scots, Russian, Serbian, Bulgarian, Albanian, Greek, Latin, Irish, Indonesian and a few more...
Language Log: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=1027
x 14962

Re: Looking for Practical Advice and Feedback for Romanian, Please

Postby Iversen » Sat Sep 24, 2022 8:29 pm

AroAro wrote:(...) you'll find here the link to Insitutul Limbii Române with examples of tests (including audio) ranging from A1 all the way to C2.

Thank you for this link. I checked my Romanian level using some of the written tests, and it was quite OK (as I had expected). But the real gem was the audio tests because they were spoken clearly and without background music or other kinds of noise - I don't care about the testing aspect, but those short sound clips were just what I needed as training materials.

However I noticed that I had a problem to keep up my attention while I listened, but then I found a trick that worked for me - though maybe not for learners who are less fixated on the written language. The trick was to convert the speech to written text in my mind while I listened - like a dictation, but without the pressure to write things down manually and without the pauses (which break the flow). Doing this I could stay focused and understand even the tests at the C levels which I hadn't expected, given that how seldom I listen to Romanian speech.

But one thing is to be able to understand writing and speech: another is a person's active level and its 'robustness' - i.e. how much noise and disturbances you can tolerate without seeing your skills evaporate. And I know from experience that my oral Romanian is somewhat fragile in this respect.
4 x

orlandohill
Yellow Belt
Posts: 50
Joined: Sun Oct 02, 2022 11:54 pm
Languages: English (N)
x 97

Re: Looking for Practical Advice and Feedback for Romanian, Please

Postby orlandohill » Mon Oct 03, 2022 12:48 am

In addition to the Teach Yourself and Colloquial textbooks, there's Româna cu sau fără profesor. You might be able to download the PDF and accompanying audio from somewhere.

Have you come across Refold? They have a nice guide to learning via immersion, with advice for each stage of the process. There's an active community on Discord, with a channel dedicated to learning Romanian.
https://refold.la/

My preferred immersion method is the Listening-Reading (L-R) technique. You can find audio books by searching for carti audio. If you don't mind paying, there are also some Romanian audio books on Audible, and a newer service, AudioTribe.
https://www.audiotribe.ro/
2 x


Return to “Practical Questions and Advice”

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 2 guests