The Talking Romanian (Moldovan) Phrasebook

The Talking Phrasebook Series presents useful phrases and words in side-by-side translation and with audio files specifically geared to help students work on listening skills and pronunciation. Below, you will find several useful phrases and words. To the left is the English and to the far right is the Romanian translation. In the center column for each row is a play button. The recorded file will feature first English, then the Romanian in three versions: one slow, one with each syllable broken out, and a last version that will be spoken as it might be overheard in a conversation between native speakers.

10 Facts about Romanian

Status: Romanian evolved from Vulgar Latin, introduced to the region after the Roman conquest of Dacia (modern-day Romania and Moldova) in 106 CE. It later developed under strong Slavic, Hungarian, and Turkish influence, especially in vocabulary and pronunciation. Today, Romanian and Italian are estimated to be about 65-85% interintelligible when written, but much less so when spoken. Around 70–75% of Romanian words come from Latin, preserving much of the original Romance core.

Speakers: Romanian has about 24–26 million native speakers worldwide. Most, about 19 million, live in Romania. About 2.5–3 million live in Moldova. Significant diasporas live in Ukraine, Serbia, Hungary, Bulgaria, Russia, Italy, Spain, the UK, and the US. The US population is estimated at between 50,000-100,000.

Speakers: Romanian has about 24–26 million native speakers worldwide. Most, around 19 million, live in Romania, and another 2.5–3 million live in Moldova. The largest diasporas are found in Italy, Spain, the UK, the US, and Russia. Smaller communities can be found in Ukraine, Serbia, Hungary, Bulgaria, and Greece. In the US, estimates range from 50,000 to 100,000 speakers.

Name: The Soviets promoted “Moldovan” as a separate language to encourage Moldovan nationalism and weaken desires to reunite with Romania. Moldova officially changed the name back to “Romanian” in 2013, as the two varieties are nearly identical, cultural and diplomatic ties with Romania are strong. However, reflecting lingering political and cultural divides as well as simple inertia, a significant yet falling number of Moldovans still call the language “Moldovan.” According to the 2014, nearly 57% proclaimed their mother tongue as Moldovan. In the 2024 Moldovan census, this number had fallen to 49%.

Dialects: Romanian has four main dialects: Daco-Romanian (the standard language spoken in Romania and Moldova), Aromanian, Megleno-Romanian, and Istro-Romanian. Differences between how the language is spoken in Moldova and Romania are limited largely to pronunciation (accent) and some vocabulary, with Moldovan showing slightly more Russian influence.

Gender: Romanian uses three grammatical genders—masculine, feminine, and neuter. However, as in ancient Latin, neuter nouns behave uniquely: they are masculine in the singular and feminine in the plural. Romanian is the only modern Romance language to preserve this aspect of Latin.

Cases: The Romanian case system is relatively simple. Technically, there are five grammatical cases: nominative, accusative, genitive, dative, and vocative. However, in practice, the nominative and accusative share one form, as do the genitive and dative, leaving three practical distinctions.

Respect: Romanian expresses respect through formal second-person pronouns. The informal “tu” is used for a single person and “voi” for informal groups. In formal contexts such as job interviews or official correspondence, the pronoun “dumneavoastră” (literally “Your Lordship”) serves as the polite “you” for both singular and plural. Perhaps because of its length, it is often abbreviated in writing as “dvs.” and often omitted in speech, as using the polite verb conjugation alone can convey formality just as effectively. For instance, “locuiești aici?” (Do you live here? (informal)) and “locuiți aici?” (“Do you live here?” (polite)) shows the difference. Today, informal pronouns are widely accepted in all but the most formal social situations. All examples below use informal language.

Subject optional: Romanian, like many Romance languages, is “pro-drop” and thus sentences do not require the subject to be named, especially when the pronoun is already implied by the verb form.

Articles: Romanian uses suffixes to indicate definite articles. For instance, “băiat” means “boy” while “băiatul” refers to “the boy.” Meanwhile, “fată” is “girl” while “fata” is “the girl.” No indefinite articles are used. While classical Latin did not use articles, vulgar Latin developed definite articles and all other descendants of Latin except Romanian also later developed indefinite articles. Romanian is the sole Latin decedent to still use only the definite article.

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Romanian Alphabet with Pronunciation and Examples

Romanian uses a 31-letter Latin-based alphabet with five special letters—Ă, Â, Î, Ș, and Ț. Romania adopted the Latin alphabet in the 1860s, while Moldova continued using Cyrillic until the early 1990s.

Survival Basics in Romanian

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Introductions in Romanian

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Asking Directions in Romanian

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Shopping in Romanian 

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Counting in Romanian

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