Learn to read Romanian
A short, active path into reading Romanian: decode real words from a small sound guide, learn why the word for “the” is welded onto the end of the noun, meet the past that fables are told in, and read a whole fable before opening your first book.
Start here
1 sectionStart here: what this path does
- It starts from no Romanian and ends with a short fable whose pronunciation and English begin hidden.
- You attempt a word before revealing how it sounds or what it means.
- In KAH-suh, the CAPITAL piece is the one you lean on and “uh” is ă.
- Three sections are lookups: search them, do not memorise them.
This is short preparation for reading a book, not a grammar course: how Romanian spelling turns into sound, where the pieces of a sentence sit, and enough recurring words to get through a first page with help.
The house is small.
Casa este mică.
KAH-sah YES-teh MEE-kuh
The middle line is the respelling. Five conventions run through every one: hyphens cut the word into pieces, the CAPITAL piece is the one you lean on, “uh” is ă, “ih” is â or î, and a bracketed letter — LOO-p(y) — is barely sounded. At checkpoints it stays hidden until you reveal it.
Four animals walk the path — Mina the mouse, Tobi the rabbit, Tika the bird, Dara the fox — from the collection it ends by handing you. The promise: by the last reading you will read this in Romanian, with the English hidden — “One day Mina the mouse saw a rabbit in the wood. ‘Good day,’ said Mina. ‘Where are you going?’”
How to use a checkpoint
Look at the Romanian first and try it out loud. Then reveal.
- casă
Two pieces, and you lean on the first. The ă is a relaxed “uh”.
Show answer +Hide answer −
casăKAH-suh“house”. Say “KAH-suh”.