Into your first book

See the five things this path left out on purpose, so they do not stop you, then open the first book and read one scene with the translation beside it.

≈ 2 min of reading · Practise at your own pace

What’s in this chapter

Start with the Green Hill fables: deliberately limited language.
Read the Romanian line before looking across at the English.
Look a word up if you want it, then move on.
Five things were left out on purpose; none of them blocks a sentence.

A book has more vocabulary and longer sentences. You know what to notice: hard and soft c and g, the vowel teams, the ending that means “the”, the verb ending that says who, and the two-word story past.

Five things left out on purpose

These five turn up in real books and were left out to keep this path short. None of them stops a sentence: read what each one is, then carry on.

What you will see	What to do about it
pe before a person	A marker before a person something is done to: Îl văd pe Tobi.“I see Tobi.” Read through it.
îmi, îți, îl, o before a verb	Small words for me, you, him, her. What they point at is usually in the line before.
-lui, -ei	Ownership: casa lupului“the wolf’s house” — another ending, just like the “the”.
cel, cea	A little word before a describing word: cel mic“the small one”.
a dash opening speech	Many Romanian books use a dash instead of „…”. Zaban’s translations use the marks you met here.

When you're ready

Into the reading room

Try your first book.

Open Twelve Tales from the Green Hill and read one scene with the English beside each line.

Books open inside a Zaban account, so you’ll be asked to log in first.

Go back a chapter

A new reading: try it before revealing help

Four lines about a mouse and a rabbit, with nothing shown. Attempt each one, then reveal the pronunciation and the English to check the scene you built.

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