1 comments about Eyewitness Travel Phrasebook: Romanian.

1. This is a wonderful phrase book - organized well and easy to find important words and phrases. If you are traveling without a guide this is the phrase book to buy.

1 comments about Romanian, Conversational: Learn to Speak and Understand Romanian with Pimsleur Language Programs (Simon & Schuster's Pimsleur Conversational).

1. Romanian is the "fifth Romance language," 70% Latin, so they say, but influenced also by the many cultures (Greek, Turkish, Hungarian, Russian, Ukrainian, etc.) that have interacted deeply in Romanian life over the past two millenia. I lived in Romania for nine months in 2008-2009, but sadly learned very little of the tongue, even though I'd bought a book and been given another, and had done some study of both.
   
   Recently, offered an opportunity to return to teach in Romania in the fall of 2010, I ordered the Pimsler course in Conversational Romanian from Amazon. It arrived, and at my first opportunity I put the CD labeled, "Disc 1, Users Guide and Lassons 1 & 2, Conversational Romanain" into my laptop, and up popped the I-Tunes menu screen. There I read, "Unit 01, 27:23, Pimsler, Hungarian." Rattled, but persistent, I clicked on the track, and the first Romanian lesson, as on the label, began. I have since found that Lesson 3 is labeled as "07... Hungarian."
   
   Faulty editng of the CDs' menus aside, I am but two lessons into this package, and already I can attest to the excellent quality of this instructional program. I am learning to hear, to comprehend, and to speak Romanian. The program is easy to use and fun to do. The native speakers and the narrator have marvelous diction and clear voices.
   
   I promise to update this review when I have completed the 16th and final lesson.
   
   Update No. 1: Now on Lesson 7, I find it as "07 Croation" in the menu. It is in fact the seventh lesson of Romanian. I am still well pleased with the quality of instruction.

5 comments about Romanian, Basic: Learn to Speak and Understand Romanian with Pimsleur Language Programs (Simon & Schuster's Pimsleur).

1. I'm a woman who recently bought this to prepare for a 2 week trip to Romania. I have no problem with the method, and in fact the things I learned did stick with me.
   
   However...it's important to know who this was designed for. As far as I can tell from the dialogues, it is designed for a man traveling on business who wants to pick up women and get them drunk.
   
   I have to say that I am slow to be offended by content. Yet, the dialogues were so slanted towards this dating goal that it came to be hilarious. Except that I seriously needed more practical knowledge for my trip, which made it exasperating instead.
   
   Sample text (restaurant scene)
   Man: Would you like something to drink?
   Woman: I'll have water.
   Man: I'm going to have a beer.
   Waiter comes over.
   Man: 2 beers, please.
   Woman: No, I wanted water.
   
   Another text:
   Woman: I'd like something to drink.
   Man: How about at your house?
   Woman: No, not at my house.
   Man: OK
   Woman: I'd also like something to eat.
   Man: LATER. (In other words, she's only allowed to drink, not eat.)
   
   One lesson after the other harped on this topic of "would you like a drink? How about a beer?" I actually could not believe my ears when I got to the higher levels and it was still on this track.
   
   So, in Romania, I was never thirsty, but I lacked basic phrases and words like "When does the train come?"
   
   Get a different program (unless you want to seduce Romanian women. Actually, not even then. It will help you get to a bar with a woman, but you will have totally run out of vocabulary once you reach that point, so good luck.)



2. The first thing I noticed about these CD's was how heavy the speaker's accents are. It is very difficult to undertand what they are saying. However, once I used it several times, I got a little more used to it but it is still tricky! The lessons are helpful to learn the language but I need to see things written as well as hear them spoken. I purchased an English to Romanian dictionary that has a bit more about the language and use the 2 products together. If you're wanting a more complete course (or you're a visual learner) I'd recommend purchasing this and a book.



3. I bought this for a friend who has some Romanian friends. I was quite impressed when two weeks later he was speaking Romanian in sentances.



4. Apparently, this brilliant product sailed over the heads of some other reviewers.
   
   First, the heavy accents of the Romanian speakers are deliberate, as is the lack of written material.
   
   They are forcing you to learn language like children do, via call-and-response. They are teaching you to pronounce words properly, and keeping you from lapsing into Americanized speech habits. If you are in the frame of mind where you think you know enough to criticize the accents of people speaking a language you obviously know almost nothing about, I don't see how you expect to learn anything. Find your beginner's mind.
   
   
   Second, the bizarre dialogs are obviously supposed to be funny... and very cleverly played in my book.
   
   For instance, in Lesson 9, the guy asks a married woman out over and over again, a dozen different ways, too dumb to take no for an answer, until she finally yells at him for obviously not understanding Romanian. (My Romanian friend laughed and said the woman would have hit him over the head with something long before that). There is also a dialog where a couple orders a wine and beer each, at the same time... huh?
   
   I think what they are doing is trying to make learning more fun. Even better, by not telegraphing the jokes, they are allowing you to discover for yourself that you are not just mindlessly repeating phrases, but you actually understand what is going on in the conversation - enough to know that something is amiss and maybe even have a laugh.
   
   This may also be an introduction to a typical Romanian sense of humor, though I am not sure. Since the weird dialogues are all dating-type situations with the guy often offensive, dumb, or both, it appears they are poking fun at the intended customers for this program - traveling businessmen. While it's true that there might have been room for a broader vocabulary otherwise, a vocab core-dump is obviously not the purpose of this course.
   
   Finally, I took French for years in HS and college and couldn't speak a word when I went to France directly afterward. I tried German in college and quit. I've tried to pick up other languages using other self-programs, including Rosetta Stone, and always quit in frustration. The problem is that most instruction gives you language pieces and analysis, like they are trying to teach you physics or math.
   
   Instead, the Pimsleur method is carefully designed to teach you real speaking skills. It seems based more on a model of learning to play a musical instrument. I was addicted after just a few minutes. In less than two weeks, I've learned more about actually speaking a new language than from all the other classes and materials I've ever tried in my life, combined. I'm looking forward to lessons 11-29.



5. This is the first review I've written of a product. First, I agree with the other woman that the dialogue is most certainly skewed towards business men visiting Romania and chatting up the local women. So, as a woman, not the most useful phrases but it did help me pick up the basics and I see where they were going with this. I just think that it does get frustrating for women who want to learn a language to have to deal with almost every language tape made circa 1990 being geared towards men. I don't mind that I get called "Sir" throughout the entire CD, as long as when I'm in Romania the same doesn't happen.
   
   As for accent. I find it an odd comment. Why would anyone complain about the accent of a native speaker? I speak a few languages and accent helps a lot in being understood. Without the proper accent in almost any language, you might as well just speak English most of the time. If the person doing the dialogue sounded like an American trying to speak Romanian, I would have thrown the whole lot in the trash long ago.
   
   The one thing I can say is that if you are looking for a CD to help learn some Romanian, especially if you are a man, this is a decent language program.
   
   The problem I had is, strangely, I'm not sure the product I received is from Pimsleur or if there is someone making copies off the CD. The first disk is labeled as Hungarian. Lessons 3&4 turned out to be a copy of 7&8 and 7&8 turned out to be 3&4. Lessons 9&10 say it's Croatian. I speak quite a bit of Serb/Croat and could tell it wasn't but this might confuse people. And while the speakers say they are speaking Romanian, I can only hope this is the case or when I get to Romania things are going to get very confusing. Essentially. It sounds like I got Romanian but the formatting of the discs are awful and misleading. If I bought this as a pirated copy off a street vendor for dollar I wouldn't care but I expect a little quality control and discs labeled properly from something supposedly produced by Pimsleur. I don't have time to buy a new series right now so luckily I speak French and German as well, which many in Romania also can speak, so if I step off the plane speaking Hungarian, I should still be able to get around but I will be quite irate.
   
   Romanian is a difficult language to find language materials in and the reality is, this CD, if I am learning Romanian, is pretty decent. Not great when compared to the plethora of language programs out there in other languages and if the option was there, I would get something else. But with Romanian, it seems the pickins' are slim. I would recommend getting a few other learning aids (books, travel phrase list from the internet, etc...) in order to really flesh out things you will need outside of a cafe. As the one writer mentioned, maybe this was their way of teaching through humor. But I guess I have a different sense of what's funny. Picking up women as a man is something I don't really find all that humorous and I'm not looking to be a stand up comedian while I'm there, but I did learn the basics from this CD (I hope) and I guess that's what's important. So, as they say in Romania, "Hi miss, would you like to get a drink with me?"

5 comments about Colloquial Romanian: A Complete Language Course (Colloquial Series).

1. I was so excited to get this book and start on the task of learning some Romanian. However, I found it to be very unhelpful. There is almost no guidance on the tapes for pronounciation. The book does provide useful vocabulary and grammar lessons, but what good are they if no one will understand you when you speak?



2. Most of the Romanian language books I've purchased (college textbooks and travel guides) focus on the things you might need as a tourist. These books also favor a formal form of speech that you seldom hear when speaking with the average Romanian (though they'll certainly understand the formal version). When I saw the title of this book, I thought it might emphasize "conversational" Romanian, the kind friends might use. The fact that it didn't was a bit disappointing. Still, it is a good introduction to the language and will help me catch a train, stay at a hotel, find my way around, go shopping, or eat at a restaurant ... all very valuable lessons.



3. The book comprises a lot of useful vocabulary and grammar information. However, the authors should have spent time by adding the pronunciation of every word. They do explain how every letter is pronunced at the beginning of the book. Yet it is very difficult for a beginner to have to go back and remind himself the sound of every other letter in a word.



4. It is not often that, when a new edition of language course is published, it is actually much worse than the previous one. Unfortunately, this course is one of those exceptions. I'll briefly outline why you'd be much better off with the earlier edition of Colloquial Romanian by the same author.
   
   1. Help with pronunciation. In Romanian, any syllable of a word can be stressed. In almost all Romanian courses I've seen, this syllable is market to help the learner get the pronunciation right. It was marked in the earlier edition of Colloquial Romanian but for some strange reason it has been droppen in this edition.
   
   2. Vocabulary lists. In any good language course, each new chapter contains a vocabulary lists of all the new words in that chapter. That was the case in the previous edition, but not so in this one. There are still vocabulary lists in each chapter, but they are very short and arbitary.
   
   3. Grammar. In the earlier edition of Colloquial Romanian, the Romanian grammar was described in a detailed yet very user-friendly way. In the new edition, there aren't many explanations and they are likely to be confusing for the beginner.
   
   In short, this book is more mysterious than any detective store. I have no idea why the author decided to downgrade his own book to this extent. The one improvement made is that the conversations are more up to date and relevant in this course. If the author would have made those changes but kept the pronunciation help, stuck to complete vocabulary lists and maintained the same grammar explanations, this would have been the best Romanian course on the market. Now, it's not only a rather useless course, it's a course that's much worse than its own previous edition.



5. This is ok, but you will probably need a tutor. My Romanian tutor found this book to be very difficult for someone with no experience with Romanian. It also lacked exercises until the end of the book. I feel there was alot of useless vocab and grammer (ie "fairytale" grammer). If you are just travelling to Romania, don't worry, most people under the age of 35 will know at least some English. If you are serious about learning Romanian, this book is useful.

5 comments about Romanian English, English Romanian: Dictionary & Phrasebook (Hippocrene Dictionary and Phrasebooks).

1. After living several years in Romania and studying the language and doing my best to get by each day, I have waded through many Romanian language texts and found most to be cumbersome and trying at the very best. I have encountered a number that were not written by native speakers of Romanian and thus contained numerous grammatical and spelling mistakes which could badly mislead an unsuspecting beginner. Most of the dictionaries I have seen are written for a speaker of Romanian who is studying English rather than vice versa and this makes a big difference when it comes to interpreting the definitions given. Many dictionaries are full of terms that are not applicable to everyday conversation and activity but were added just to impress the buyer with the broad scope (however irrelevant)of the text.
   
   I cannot comment on how easy to understand the grammar and pronounciation guides are in this particular book because I found this book only after I already had a thorough understanding of those two things. I can say, however, that the phrases in this book are very accurate and very natural to Romanian conversation and will come in handy to any traveller whether you are in Romania for business or pleasure. I have shown this book to my Romanian friends for further confirmation and they have agreed with me in full. I still refer to this book myself from time to time when I am writing emails or letters and can't think of exactly the right way to put something. The dictionary may be small, but I think it is more than enough to provide an adequate beginner's vocabulary which you can build on as you learn more. For serious study of the language, this book is only a basic introduction and can never take the place of a real live instructor. But if you just want to know the basics before you step off the plane in Otopeni, I advise you to pick up a copy of this one.
   
   But a couple more words of advice if you are planning a trip to Romania: Do NOT trust guide books or cab drivers. ;)



2. If you're looking for a comprehensive English-Romanian dictionary, look no further! This is one.
   
   However, if you're a little more picky, and you actually want to be able find the translations for common words, you might want to look elsewhere. This book is sorely lacking.



3. Although it may seem funny, I bought this book to improve my English (I am a native speaker of Romanian) and found it helpful. However, if you want more than elementary Romanian I would suggest to buy some English-Romanian/ Romanian-English dictionaries, phrase books, and grammar books published in Romania which are far more complete and accurate (there are now many Romanian online bookstores, just google "editura").



4. I started using this dictionary believing it to be a simple and straightforward way of learning some simple words in Romanian.
   
   However, having learned a number of nouns I then discovered that many of them were old words, no longer used. If you want to learn Romanian that most Romanians will understand then don't use this book.
   
   Nu bine!



5. This was the only book we took on a recent visit to Romania. We thought that it would work very well as it seemed comprehensive and slim for travel. When we actually tried to use it everyday it was better than nothing but practically useless. Many of the words that should have been in the translation part could only be found in the phrasebook part. Not at all useful when struggling to put a sentence together. This happened so often that we just left it behind in the hotel rather than continue on with it. I think that for what it purported itself to be, it is a total failure.

5 comments about Discover Romanian: An Introduction to the Language and Culture.

1. After buying Colloquial Romanian (which is a good product, but get the CD's), a horrible Romanian-English/English-Romanian dictionary, and Hippocrene's brief pamphlet on Romanian grammar, I was about to give up trying to learn Romanian. I happened to find this book while browsing on Amazon. I ordered it and I've been very pleased. I'm about half-way through it and I've been impressed with how much I'm able to read now. The book is designed for use in the classroom, but it is also very good for self-study. It is extremely comprehensive and explains many grammar rules that the Colloquial Romanian book would have you figure out on your own. You'll understand all of those spelling changes and the regular conjugation of verbs after reading Discover Romanian. It has an appendix of conjugated verbs, a Romanian to English dictionary, and an English to Romanian dictionary. If you're serious about learning Romanian, the price shouldn't stop you. This book is worth it.



2. This book is, as the other reviewers said, the best book available. Make no mistake about it, Romanian grammar is complex and even this author, tries as he may, cannot necessarily come up with any neat grammatical rules that explain various conjugations and declensions. There is a complete free Romanian grammar on the web, written by a linguist. This has many grammatical points often unknown by Romanians, even. However, this grammar is very complex, as it is written by a lingist.
   
   Unfortunately, because "Discover Romanian" was printed in 1995, it uses the old spelling rules, which I believe Colloquial Romanian does not. It uses sint (with a circumflex over the i) instead of sunt. This is actually how the word is pronounced, but it is no longer spelled this way. I will not go into an explanation of how these rules changed, but just be aware of it from other books or Romanian language site.
   
   Additionally, you can find a complete set of CDs for this book, but you cannot find them on Amazon, unfortunately. Do a websearch, and you will find not on these CDS, but a workbook and a biliguingal reader that are also available.
   
   Thd CDs are a great bargain, at $50, as they cover all 20 chapters. That is certainly better than some of these tapes that are about $15 for one tape or so.
   
   I hope this was helpful.



3. This book is very useful for learning Romanian -- explained very clearly, with lots of useful exercises -- but not sufficient for self-study. There is no answer key, and not every point of grammar is exlpained fully.



4. After buying this book almost six years ago, I can say that this was probably one of the best investments I ever made! The book assumes you have no knowledge of the language and then slowly builds skills by having a lively dialogue in each beginning chapter, vocabulary, and uses the theme of the chapters and dialogue by having an end of chapter reading. (I had some exposure to the language because my dad is from there) As the chapters continue, the end of chapter readings become longer and more difficult, but the author prepares you to understand them. There are also about 10 to 15 assignments per each chapter (20 chapters total). This book really gravitated my interest in the language and after visiting the country three times since I purchases the book, I attribute my ability to communicate effectively in romanian to this book.



5. There are some very obvious pros and cons to this book, explaining why I give it three stars.
   
   PROS
   Major pros
   It it (by quite a margin) the most extensive Romanian course in English. No other Romanian course will give you such a detailed explanation of Romanian grammar or such an extensive Romanian vocabulary. For the serious student of Romanian, this book will probably be very helpful.
   
   CONS
   Majors cons
   Contrary to most other Romanian courses, the vocabulary in each chapter doesn't mark stress. For each and every word, you have to go to the vocabulary in the back, find the stress, then mark it word by word. With more than 2000 words, be prepared for hours of work. Most other courses will do it for you, and it is a major drawback that this course doesn't.
   This is yet another course with excercises but no keys. Strange.
   
   Minor cons
   Despite being relatively new, the book uses the old spelling that was used before the spelling reform.
   The vocabulary list for each chapter is messy, not in structured tables as in most courses.
   
   If you're a total beginner, this is not the book for you. The lack of accentuation and the lack of answer keys will make the learning process harder than it should be. If you have already completed a course such as Colloquial Romanian and want to take it further, then I recommend this course.

5 comments about Teach Yourself Romanian Complete Course Audiopackage.

1. Well, I started this self-learning course in Rumanian and I am hooked form the begining, but trapped and cannot go through at the 5th lesson, when it comes to speak about the Rumanian conjugation in Present Simple. There is no proper method for memorizing this four kind of verbs according to their ending and as the dialogues and the book is going through the estimated learning of the present to present you the other tenses, I am trapped asnd cannot pass that chapter. What should I do? I have reviewerd other chapters forward and I have observed that there is a good way for explaining the other tenses, but not the main one, the Present!



2. When I decided to learn a little bit about Romanian, I had a hard time finding good resources. I was very apprenhensive about getting this book because I've used other books in the "Teach Yourself" series, and they are for the most part very mediocre. And most of them don't even teach the language in a logical order.
   
   This book, however, does teach Romanian in a logical manner. (If you're wondering what I mean by logical order, here's why: I have "Teach Yourself Hindi," and it's extremely hard to learn the language because it teaches things at random.)
   
   I would recommend using this book with "Romanian Dictionary & Phrasebook" by Mihai Miroiu. You should also practice your pronunciation with a native speaker.
   
   Brandon Simpson



3. It is a good book for people like me who desperately need material; however it's not great for learning Romanian thoroughly.
   
   It's worth the money but it has a few obscure phrases and not enough that I would like to learn. It is a good book but not a 'one stop shop' for learning Romanian and other resources would be required



4. I wanted to learn Romanian because I married a Romanian and his family speaks only Romanian. This book was not all that helpful for this kind of reference, learning to say "How much is a ticket" isn't something that is all that helpful. I wasn't very happy with the way the book was organized either.
   
   You could tell that the book was probably written in Europe, perhaps in England. The english words sometimes didn't fit and seemed foreign (even though they were in English).
   
   Overall I think this book is helpful for tourists in Romania, but that is probably all it is helpful for. I would look into another book if I wanted to truly learn Romanian.



5. This book reminded me why I failed so miserably to learn foreign languages in school: because they taught out of books like this one. You get a seemingly random onslaught of bits and pieces of the language, and there is no effort to deliver it to you in a way that enables you to learn. I suppose a good langauge teacher could make use of a text like this, but for self-study it is useless. The audio discs are even worse. They merely zip through a list of words at blinding speed without any context or pauses. It's the only way to be sure how to pronounce anything you find in the book and the effort of trying to start, stop, and sift through the audio material is not worth it. Lame, lame, lame!
   
   I am more than halfway through the 30 lesson Pimsleur Romanian course, which actually works well, so far as it goes. I was hoping I could use this book to supplement near the end, then continue on after lesson 30, but after about 40 pages, it looks doubtful. If I had picked this "Teach Yourself" course first, instead of Pimsleur, I wouldn't have made it that far, and would still be sitting here thinking I was incapable of learning a new language. Bad language instruction is like a plague in the US, and this "Course" is more of the same.
   
   So far, Pimsleur and the Eurotalk computer programs are the only materials I've found worth even a penny.

2 comments about Romanian Phrase Book & Dictionary (Berlitz Phrase Book) (Romanian Edition).

1. THIS IS A GREAT LITTLE BOOK, IT DOESN'T COME WITH PICTURES AS WITH THE OTHER BERLITZ PHRASE BOOKS, DON'T KNOW WHY!, THE COUNTRY IS BEAUTIFUL, NICE PEOPLE, THE LANGUAGE IS BEAUTIFUL ALONG WITH ITALIAN IS THE CLOSEST TO LATIN, IT'S A BEAUTIFUL LANGUAGE, DON'T KNOW WHY LONELY PLANET,RICK STEVES AND OTHERS DON'T PUBLISH ROMANIAN PHRASE BOOKS, HIGHLY RECOMMEND IT!



2. Well I actually dont own this book as I decided not to purchase it since the "Look Inside" displayed typos in the "greetings" section. In their translation piece they showed "â" as sounding like "uh" but when pronouncing "bunâ" they said it was pronounced "booner" (as if pronouncing bunä), rather than "boonah" like it should say. Because of this huge typo just in the screening of this book, I am afraid there will be more typos, and thus will not be purchasing it. It is actually a shame as I liked the format of the sections and would have preferred this format over other books. If they get their typos fixed I would definitely buy this book.

5 comments about Romanian Made Nice & Easy (REA) (Languages Made Nice & Easy).

1. I have bought a small set of books to learn the Romanian language and this seems to be the least useful of them.
   
   It's not a book that will teach you the language - it will only provide you phrases that will be useful if you want to spend some days in Romania and be minimally understood. If you really want to learn the language by yourself, it should be really a better idea to buy some method (I particularly like the one from Assimil, which has an option with audio from the lessons spoken by native Romanians), a Romanian grammar (the one from Christina Hoffman is very helpful) and a good dictionary. This one is just for tourists.



2. OK, they do try to give me a clue to how the words sound when spoken by giving me a pseudo-phonetic hint. But many times, the hint would have me saying the words incorrectly. I know this because my wife is Romanian and I've tried to say a few of the phrases the way the hint implies ... only to be laughed at.
   
   Teaching me to say the words incorrectly doesn't inspire a lot of confidence in the book. But I guess it was based on the language courses for the U.S. Foreign Service Personnel. It's just a good thing that many of the Romanians these government employees will face know English.
   
   For example, to say "I'd like to eat," the book tells me to say "ahsh vree-AH sa ma-NUNK." Well, I'd be closer to how the Romanians say it if that last word had been "ma-NINK."
   
   But overall, it's a half-way decent traveler's Romanian. And I can tell them I'm an American ... though, using the pronunciation in this book as a guide, I don't think they'll have any trouble guessing that I am.



3. but the pronunciation is good. I didn't bother to bring this with me when I moved to Romania if that tells you anything.



4. This is a pleasant little book to use in conjunction with other Romanian study. If I were to suggest an improvement, it would be for more and more frequent review questions.



5. This is an excellent book to have when attempting to learn the Romanian language. It covers the basics; it is accurate; and is simply written and easy to understand. However, without a tape or CD to listen to, it is hard to know if you are pronouncing the words correctly or not. If it did come with a tape or CD, it could easily be rated with 5 stars.
   
   I do not regret purchasing this book. Later, when I purchased another Romanian language course, complete with a tape to listen to, I realized that 'Romanian Made Nice & Easy!' was indeed a big help because, having read and studied the book, I was one step ahead of the basic course & recognized a lot of the Romanian words, phrases and some of the pronunciations already.
   
   I would recommend 'Romanian Made Nice & Easy!' to everyone who is interested in learning the language; and to anyone who will be traveling to Romania in the future. It is a great guide for beginners; and an excellent guide for the price. Since it is offered at such a low price, you can't go wrong; and you won't regret you ordered it.
   
   Note:
   *Since most language courses are a bit pricy, this is a great tool to start off with until you decide to purchase the more expensive ones at a later date; this is what I did.*

5 comments about Romanian-English, English-Romanian Dictionary (Hippocrene Standard Dictionary).

1. One of the letters in the Romanian alphabet is an "a" with a "^" over it. But this letter does not appear in this dictionary, and consequentially every word in which this letter appears is missing! Imagine a dictionary that is missing the letter "j" and every word that has the letter "j" in it.



2. Joe,

   There was an orthographic change in Romanian made by the Romanian Academy, I believe in the early 1990s, reverting to a system used before the communist takeover, if I'm not mistaken.

   The short answer is that "a" with the circumflex (^) over it is exactly the same letter/sound as "i" with the circumflex over it. (I don't have Miroiu's dictionary in front of me, but I'm guessing it uses the latter. Many communist-era texts, and some written by communist-educated emigres--not to mention some pre-20th century writings--do likewise.)

   For example, the word for "bread" will look like (as best an ASCII keyboard permits) "pa^ine" as well as "pi^ine". The change to "a^" does not affect the first letter of words that start with "i^", as in the word "i^nta^lnire / i^nti^lnire" or the preposition "i^n". The "a^" is now the orthographic rule taught in schools.

   As you learn Romanian, you'll get used to reading both, because you'll probably end up reading material from different historical periods. Basically, the shifts back and forth have to do with an enduring and rather politicized geographic-cultural debate over Romania's relationship to Latin, Rome and the West in general versus Slavic influences and the East.

   Frank




3. If your command of either one of thesse languages is above second grade do not bother to buy or even borrow this dictionary. It seems as if the author glanced quickly over the Andrei Bantas dictionary (the real one to be treasured) and put overnight a real cheap and dim paperback.



4. Hippocrene's ROMANIAN-ENGLISH ENGLISH-ROMANIAN DICTIONARY, compiled by Mihai Miroiu is another shoddy offering from a company whose dictionaries are among the worst in the English-speaking world. All the downsides of a Hippocrene dictionary are here. The typesetting is poor, it was seemingly done in a word-processor and uses ugly standard computer fonts (and a conspicuous lack of italics), and to boot a good inch of the bottom of each page before the page number is empty. The dictionary is a simple one-to-one translation of each word, there's no definition of words when they occur in idiomatic contexts. And for a dictionary with so few definitions, it is seized too large for the pocket and is overpriced.
   
   Then there's some dictionary-specific quirks. Though Miroiu's dictionary was first published in 1996, it uses the pre-1993 (Communist-era) orthography that has long been abandoned by the Romanian public. Of course, anyone who works with Romanian will eventually read texts using the old orthography, but it's important for students to know about the various systems, and Miroiu doesn't even mention the existence of a new orthography. And though Hippocrene is an American publisher, the pronunciation of English words is given according to the Received Pronunciation, not General American.
   
   If you are an English-speaker learning Romanian, you'll need to obtain a dictionary from a Romanian publisher, since there's nothing too grand from English-language presses. Try the Theora dictionaries, which are much more useful and polished. There are also so-called "orthographical dictionaries" which are vital for students, as while they don't contain definitions, they show the formation of the genitive and the plural for nouns and the conjugation patterns of verbs. Hippocrene is a publisher that usually disappoints, and this dictionary is no exception.



5. Probably the best thing you'll get for this price in Amazon, which does not mean it's good. In fact it's very poor. I'll probably follow the suggestions I've been reading everywhere: Romanian dictionaries should be bought from Romanian editors.
   
   But since I had no English-Romanian/Romanian-English dictionary and this one's not too expensive, then it's ok.