Italian here. I think it sounds very close to Latin, of course, I can’t understand a word if you speak but if I read it I can recognise a good number of words
Sounds like a Slavic language with slightly more random words that I can actually understand than I can in other (actual) Slavic languages. It’s pretty hard to hear that it’s a Romance language, though. Reading it is slightly easier, but not by much.
Asking this kind of question about a language which is isolated or not part of a major language family would make sense, but Romanian isn’t like that. It belongs to one of the biggest and most widely spoken language families in the world. So if it sounds “unusual” to someone, it probably just means they haven’t had much contact with the modern world.
Lol.
When I first flew to Romania about 15 years ago, the flight attendant literally greeted me with “Bună seara.” Have any of you ever heard anything more Italian-sounding than that?!
When I first heard it spoken, I didn’t know what language it was. I kept speculating between a very odd dialect of Italian, or something Eastern European.
As a Spanish speaker who’s used to hearing other Romance languages, I had a stroke the first time I heard it. Usually I’m pretty good at placing languages but it sounded like an odd mix of Italian, Portuguese and French but with a distinctly Slavic mix.
Slavic-sounding gibberish with random words I understand thrown in, and the occasional phrase that sounds exactly like Catalan. Like I’d understand a lot more if the pronunciation was more clear (to which written Romanian says: not quite).
I like it, it’s very exotic to me. I speak Czech and understand Slovak, and like everybody in Europe who’s at least a little bit cultured understands many words from Italian and Spanish, so there are many familiar words and formulas, but still not very understandable. But I learned to sing the first four lines of the Dinosaur Song “Hai noroc si bine”. 😀
I was in Satu Mare on Wednesday, I liked the train conductor’s “Buna Ziua” and other words. But it was very strange that nobody spoke Hungarian (who wasn’t Hungarian in the first place), I thought a third of Satu Mare’s population is Hungarian. But we managed at the train station shop where I wanted to buy some drinks:
I had to go on youtube to listen to spoken Romanian, and the first video it gave me was “Why you shouldn’t learn Romanian.” I’m Czech, and it sounds almost Russian to me, but the kind you don’t actually understand a word.
It sounds like an Italian trying to speak Arabic to me. The accent sounds Latinate but the actual words just kind of sound like Arabic words to my untutored ear.
I am Catalan, if I don’t pay attention I don’t understand, I try to listen carefully and if I can understand some words but the phonetics are different and they speak too fast, I suppose that with a few clarifications from a Romanian… it would be quite easy for me to learn to defend myself
Incongruous, at first. There clearly is a lot of Romance vocabulary, but the spoken language doesn’t sound like a Romance language to me.
I (a native German speaker) experience a similar sense of initial dissonance when I hear Sorbian. Most of the vocabulary is clearly Slavic, but (native) speakers all sounds as if they were Germans trying to speak Czech or Polish with the worst German accent. 😅
As a Spaniard, it is like a kind of nasalized Italian with s similar to French. It seems very close to Latin (not counting the affirmation, which is “Da”, as in many Slavic languages). Sometimes I have to listen well to differentiate it from Italian.
When I hear Romanian I guess it is Romanian because I speak Spanish and I learned Latin at school. When it sounds like something I might understand but I dont although it sounds familiar it is probably Romanian. I find it interesting how some Italians say they dont understand Romanian at all and some say they do a bit. Probably similar to German and Dutch. I feel like I understand Dutch but I know Germans who don‘t at all.
Romanian here. An interesting fact, there was a Romanian foreign language student that went to Spain/Barcelona around 25-30 years ago and put together a dictionary of over 6.000 words similar (coincidentally) to Catalan. An example I remember is that the part participle is similar: “mort”/“mort”. Both sound weird because they are a bit harsh and with more closed vowels.
My partner is romanian, it sounds like a romance language but just slavic enough. It seems to depend strongly on the dialect/region though, especially some parts of Moldovans basically sound slavic
For those of you who wonder what romanian actually is. I could say it has several parts (similar like english where different influences brought new influences).
the core latin: Words that match west romance languages but also words dervied from another latin root that dissapeared from those W-R languages so they can’t understand (example : munca = labour from munus,muneris = duty). Also from a grammar perspective, Romanian is the only romance language which still has the old latin case system for the noun.
Slavic influence. Most of this is actually (proto)-bulgarian. Some russian influence from the communism time but that’s way bigger in Rep. Of Moldova.
New latin via french: We borrowed a lot of words from french during belle epoque.
Overall Romanian is one of the best example to show language intelligibility is not symmetric (If A understand B, B might not understand A) as for many ideas we have two words : a latin one that helps us understand W-R languages but also a slavic one that we might use and block W-R speakers undestand us.
Like Italian with slavic words thrown in sometimes. I honestly think Portuguese sounds more eastern Europe in pronunciation than Romanian. Romanian sounds soft romance but the vocabulary is all wrong.
Though I know it depends on the dialect too. My impression is based on listening to my coworker speak on the phone, but some month ago we had a customer come in to talk to her and I thought they were mistakingly speaking a Slavic language to her, but when I asked she said it was just a dialect of Romanian.
It sounds like Italian to me – I don’t speak Italian but the sounds and tempo seem similar. I speak some French and was surprised by how much of the shop signs I could more-or-less understand so there’s obviously a lot of latin cross-over in vocabulary.
Reading this thread is funny as an actual Slavic language speaker. To me Romanian sounds nothing like a Slavic language besides some random loanwords that exist in every language. I feel people are just parroting the usual stereotypes where anything Eastern European = Slavic.
It is strange at first as it sounds Italian and Spanish at the same time but not really. It was interesting listening to some conversations as I sometimes understood words. It was a bit like the first time you hear Portuguese.
To me it sounds very much like Latin. Not necessarily vocabulary wise but the sound is there. And not the Liturgical Latin but the actual Latin spoken by Romans.
It sounds cool (like any Romance language), but because of their vowel harmony I prefer Hungarian. Sorry. But to cheer you up, I will say that in Poland we only listen to three things: Polish, English, and Romance languages (so you have a better chance of success than them 😉 ). Och, and Korean pop (they also have vowel harmony) – but their language is more popular because their import a lot of their pop culture outside (like US).
To my Finnish ears its sounds partially like some slavic language without the typical slavic accent.
When Romanian does not sound slavic it sounds like some mix of Spanish or Italian.
My take is a mix of Italian and Bulgarian. Not the language itself, but the pronunciation certainly. There’s one type of Romanian accent in English that matches perfectly with a type of Bulgarian accent, which means we pronounce sounds pretty much the same way.
If I don’t focus on the conversation, I would sometimes confuse Romanian for my own language. If I listen to the words, it sounds very similar to Italian.
Sound like some kind of Portuguese to me with a Slavic accent, not horrible at all though. I do not know or understand Portuguese or any Slavic language.
Depends on the accent. I’ve met a lot of Romanians, some from Bucarest and the center of the country and some from the northern border. Both accents sound really nice, but the Bucaresti one sounds harsher and the northern one reminds me of Russian in how soft and fluid it sounds.
I like the sound of Romanian. For some reason I’ve had Romanian reels pop up in my Instagram as of late and it’s a pleasant sounding language. I also like how it looks in its written form.
I don’t understand why, but to me Romanian doesn’t sound similar to Italian. I can understand most of it when reading, but when listening I find it difficult to follow. It has a strange cadence that reminds me more of Slavic languages when spoken fast, even though Romanian is a Latin language
To my ears sounds like an interesting combination of Italian and weirdly enough Albanian. There are Slavic influences as well but fhe Latin core is unmistakable. I was so happy that by knowing french I could understand many signs in Bucharest during the month I stayed there.
Of all the eastern European languages I’ve heard, I actually think Romanian sounds very “not eastern European” unlike Polish or Czech, if that makes any sense.
25s SURPRISE RUSSIAN! I guess it’s this â letter which sounds very much like Russian ы
Rest is Italian
So mostly Romance with some occasional Slavic words and similarities in pronunciation, as if Italian and Bulgarian had a baby. It will depend a lot on accent/region too. Nevertheless, I don’t think I’d ever mistake it for Slavic – it is unmistakably Romance.
I actually think Portuguese sounds more Slavic (like Russian + Polish specifically) despite Romanian being the one which has some Slavic vocab. Listen to Jose Mourinho here, close your eyes and tell me he doesn’t sound almost exactly like a Russian speaking English. It’s startling.
Pretty Slavic, but not quite Slavic when you listen more carefully. I happen to know some little Romanian (I’m a Swede), so I can understand some few words here and there if I listen carefully, it is most decidedly some odd Romance language, that doesn’t fit into the ordinary Romance sound pattern.
It sounds very Slavic. Then, after a little while hearing it, I realise it has some Italian/Portuguese notes to it and then I understand it is Romanian I’m hearing.
Like an Eastern European trying to speak Italian. The vowels are very Russian, especially /ɨ/, there’s lots of sibilants and if you muffle it, it really sounds Russian: same tempo, same up and down tones.
It sounds like Italian with a Slavic influence accent, but it still sounds romance. Romanian spoken in Moldova sounds like a Russian speaking Italian in a pure Russian accent
I am learning it because I’m bored at work. It’s a really beautiful language if used in poetry but sometimes when people speak it it’s rash. It’s a really fascinating and unique language.
I still don’t know the way oina is played or if it’s even popular.
Like a weird Catalan dialect, if I’m not taking lots of attention. I mean, I remember once the put a speech of Moldovan president or prime minister on the news (subtitled) and I was not really listening and I didn’t realise the language had changed till a moment I tried to understand and I realised I only could understand a couple of words per sentence, at most.
From a distance it sounds very similar to Italian or Spanish. Upon closer listening it sounds like “Italian but with a twist”. And then someone says da and I suddenly realize what language it really is!
Comments
Going to be very direct and dutch here. It sounds very eastern european with a little pinch of klingon
Italian here. I think it sounds very close to Latin, of course, I can’t understand a word if you speak but if I read it I can recognise a good number of words
Sounds like a Slavic language with slightly more random words that I can actually understand than I can in other (actual) Slavic languages. It’s pretty hard to hear that it’s a Romance language, though. Reading it is slightly easier, but not by much.
Italian with a dash of very unexpected Russian. But that might be more Moldovan than plain Romanian.
Asking this kind of question about a language which is isolated or not part of a major language family would make sense, but Romanian isn’t like that. It belongs to one of the biggest and most widely spoken language families in the world. So if it sounds “unusual” to someone, it probably just means they haven’t had much contact with the modern world.
Lol.
When I first flew to Romania about 15 years ago, the flight attendant literally greeted me with “Bună seara.” Have any of you ever heard anything more Italian-sounding than that?!
When I first heard it spoken, I didn’t know what language it was. I kept speculating between a very odd dialect of Italian, or something Eastern European.
Eastern European with some french throw in occasionally
I’ve worked with Romanian for several years and to me it always sounds like regular Eastern European accent with a strong Italian influence.
For me, it surprisingly sounded like Brazilian. Lots of ‘u’s, ‘au’s, that are pronounced in a chewing motion. But with a distinctively Slavic flavour.
When I first heard it on some stream I thought it’s Italian, so that
Foreign as fuck.
Am British but can speak a bit. Trying to say 🍋 always gets a giggle.
I can recognise what it is it but can’t understand it when I hear it but I can get the gist of written Romanian from the Latin derived words.
Not that I never heard Romanian, but I can’t really recall what it sounds like to me.
It sounds Slavic to me, until I start listening more carefully. Then I start understanding the Latin words etc.
As an Italian speaking also Brazilian Portuguese, sometimes it sounds like Portuguese, but immediately I realize that I don’t understand.
As a Spanish speaker who’s used to hearing other Romance languages, I had a stroke the first time I heard it. Usually I’m pretty good at placing languages but it sounded like an odd mix of Italian, Portuguese and French but with a distinctly Slavic mix.
For me it sounds like Italian without the melody, and a heavy Slavic accent.
Slavic-sounding gibberish with random words I understand thrown in, and the occasional phrase that sounds exactly like Catalan. Like I’d understand a lot more if the pronunciation was more clear (to which written Romanian says: not quite).
Like a Slavic language with occasional Latin words mixed in. Also reminds me a bit of Albanian.
I like it, it’s very exotic to me. I speak Czech and understand Slovak, and like everybody in Europe who’s at least a little bit cultured understands many words from Italian and Spanish, so there are many familiar words and formulas, but still not very understandable. But I learned to sing the first four lines of the Dinosaur Song “Hai noroc si bine”. 😀
I was in Satu Mare on Wednesday, I liked the train conductor’s “Buna Ziua” and other words. But it was very strange that nobody spoke Hungarian (who wasn’t Hungarian in the first place), I thought a third of Satu Mare’s population is Hungarian. But we managed at the train station shop where I wanted to buy some drinks:
“Jó napot. Beszél magyarul?”
🙁
“Carta VISA?” and I showed her my credit card.
😊
I buy my things and then “Multumesc!”
😊
I had to go on youtube to listen to spoken Romanian, and the first video it gave me was “Why you shouldn’t learn Romanian.” I’m Czech, and it sounds almost Russian to me, but the kind you don’t actually understand a word.
As a Portuguese speaker, I think it sounds really close to Latin
Edit: and a bit slavic as well
It sounds like an Italian trying to speak Arabic to me. The accent sounds Latinate but the actual words just kind of sound like Arabic words to my untutored ear.
I never hear it, to be honest. The very few times I have, I could tell it was a Romance language.
I am Catalan, if I don’t pay attention I don’t understand, I try to listen carefully and if I can understand some words but the phonetics are different and they speak too fast, I suppose that with a few clarifications from a Romanian… it would be quite easy for me to learn to defend myself
It sounds surprisingly close to Catalan, but with Slavic influence all over it.
Some Slavic language and Latin language at about the same time
When I visited, listening to people talk amongst themselves sounded almost like Portuguese.
Beautiful country!
Incongruous, at first. There clearly is a lot of Romance vocabulary, but the spoken language doesn’t sound like a Romance language to me.
I (a native German speaker) experience a similar sense of initial dissonance when I hear Sorbian. Most of the vocabulary is clearly Slavic, but (native) speakers all sounds as if they were Germans trying to speak Czech or Polish with the worst German accent. 😅
As a Spaniard, it is like a kind of nasalized Italian with s similar to French. It seems very close to Latin (not counting the affirmation, which is “Da”, as in many Slavic languages). Sometimes I have to listen well to differentiate it from Italian.
When I hear Romanian I guess it is Romanian because I speak Spanish and I learned Latin at school. When it sounds like something I might understand but I dont although it sounds familiar it is probably Romanian. I find it interesting how some Italians say they dont understand Romanian at all and some say they do a bit. Probably similar to German and Dutch. I feel like I understand Dutch but I know Germans who don‘t at all.
Romanian here. An interesting fact, there was a Romanian foreign language student that went to Spain/Barcelona around 25-30 years ago and put together a dictionary of over 6.000 words similar (coincidentally) to Catalan. An example I remember is that the part participle is similar: “mort”/“mort”. Both sound weird because they are a bit harsh and with more closed vowels.
It sounds cool and beautiful.
I can’t speak a single line of Romanian, however I can sing the full lyrics of Dragostea din tei
Weird because in the middle, i recognise a word or two.
My partner is romanian, it sounds like a romance language but just slavic enough. It seems to depend strongly on the dialect/region though, especially some parts of Moldovans basically sound slavic
For those of you who wonder what romanian actually is. I could say it has several parts (similar like english where different influences brought new influences).
Overall Romanian is one of the best example to show language intelligibility is not symmetric (If A understand B, B might not understand A) as for many ideas we have two words : a latin one that helps us understand W-R languages but also a slavic one that we might use and block W-R speakers undestand us.
Like Italian with slavic words thrown in sometimes. I honestly think Portuguese sounds more eastern Europe in pronunciation than Romanian. Romanian sounds soft romance but the vocabulary is all wrong.
Though I know it depends on the dialect too. My impression is based on listening to my coworker speak on the phone, but some month ago we had a customer come in to talk to her and I thought they were mistakingly speaking a Slavic language to her, but when I asked she said it was just a dialect of Romanian.
I speak some Spanish and I have once heard someone speak Romanian, and I could definitely make out a few words!
It sounds like Italian to me – I don’t speak Italian but the sounds and tempo seem similar. I speak some French and was surprised by how much of the shop signs I could more-or-less understand so there’s obviously a lot of latin cross-over in vocabulary.
Spanish here. Like Polish, but leaving the weird perception of understanding something.
Like some slavic language unrelated at all with Latin, from time to time a ramdom word that sounds familiar.
Reading this thread is funny as an actual Slavic language speaker. To me Romanian sounds nothing like a Slavic language besides some random loanwords that exist in every language. I feel people are just parroting the usual stereotypes where anything Eastern European = Slavic.
It is strange at first as it sounds Italian and Spanish at the same time but not really. It was interesting listening to some conversations as I sometimes understood words. It was a bit like the first time you hear Portuguese.
As a Spaniard, its a mix between italien, portuguese and a touch of slavic all in one. To my ears at least.
To me it sounds very much like Latin. Not necessarily vocabulary wise but the sound is there. And not the Liturgical Latin but the actual Latin spoken by Romans.
A hint of portuguese too perchance?
Italian spoken by Russian person. I wrote why here: What language does Romanian sound like the most?
It sounds cool (like any Romance language), but because of their vowel harmony I prefer Hungarian. Sorry. But to cheer you up, I will say that in Poland we only listen to three things: Polish, English, and Romance languages (so you have a better chance of success than them 😉 ). Och, and Korean pop (they also have vowel harmony) – but their language is more popular because their import a lot of their pop culture outside (like US).
Portuguese here: the sounds are very familiar, somerines it looks Italian, but the next moment i realize I don’t understand the meaning of any word
To my Finnish ears its sounds partially like some slavic language without the typical slavic accent.
When Romanian does not sound slavic it sounds like some mix of Spanish or Italian.
I really like how it sounds. It’s very unique, yet familiar, and not incredibly rough-sounding like other Eastern European languages.
My take is a mix of Italian and Bulgarian. Not the language itself, but the pronunciation certainly. There’s one type of Romanian accent in English that matches perfectly with a type of Bulgarian accent, which means we pronounce sounds pretty much the same way.
If I don’t focus on the conversation, I would sometimes confuse Romanian for my own language. If I listen to the words, it sounds very similar to Italian.
portuguese but the words all jumbled up. fica means stay in portuguese, curva means curve
Sound like some kind of Portuguese to me with a Slavic accent, not horrible at all though. I do not know or understand Portuguese or any Slavic language.
Depends on the accent. I’ve met a lot of Romanians, some from Bucarest and the center of the country and some from the northern border. Both accents sound really nice, but the Bucaresti one sounds harsher and the northern one reminds me of Russian in how soft and fluid it sounds.
I like the sound of Romanian. For some reason I’ve had Romanian reels pop up in my Instagram as of late and it’s a pleasant sounding language. I also like how it looks in its written form.
As a Slavic speaker, and from a country with a lot of Italians, it sounds similar to Italian, but very much off.
I don’t understand why, but to me Romanian doesn’t sound similar to Italian. I can understand most of it when reading, but when listening I find it difficult to follow. It has a strange cadence that reminds me more of Slavic languages when spoken fast, even though Romanian is a Latin language
It sounds like a drunk Italian who lived in eastern Europe for to long.
I only have some Romanian military songs as a reference, but to me it sounds like a west slav speaking Italian
To my ears sounds like an interesting combination of Italian and weirdly enough Albanian. There are Slavic influences as well but fhe Latin core is unmistakable. I was so happy that by knowing french I could understand many signs in Bucharest during the month I stayed there.
Of all the eastern European languages I’ve heard, I actually think Romanian sounds very “not eastern European” unlike Polish or Czech, if that makes any sense.
i speak fluent italian. romanian sounds to me exactly like italian, however i can’t understand anything. kinda like sim language, but italian lol
Listening to this, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MbTz9QRVOAI
0-5s sounds Romance to me
5-10s sounds straight up Slavic
10s we’re back to Romance
12s sounds Portuguese specifically
18s temporar sounds Spanish
24s lol la noapte (Romance) + vreme (Slavic)
25s SURPRISE RUSSIAN! I guess it’s this â letter which sounds very much like Russian ы
Rest is Italian
So mostly Romance with some occasional Slavic words and similarities in pronunciation, as if Italian and Bulgarian had a baby. It will depend a lot on accent/region too. Nevertheless, I don’t think I’d ever mistake it for Slavic – it is unmistakably Romance.
I actually think Portuguese sounds more Slavic (like Russian + Polish specifically) despite Romanian being the one which has some Slavic vocab. Listen to Jose Mourinho here, close your eyes and tell me he doesn’t sound almost exactly like a Russian speaking English. It’s startling.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R08m88qOJaQ
Dutchman here: Written Romanian is always hilarious because lul means dick in Dutch.
When listening to it, it sounds like weird Italian.
It sounds like spicy Italian to me, pretty nice actually.
Pretty Slavic, but not quite Slavic when you listen more carefully. I happen to know some little Romanian (I’m a Swede), so I can understand some few words here and there if I listen carefully, it is most decidedly some odd Romance language, that doesn’t fit into the ordinary Romance sound pattern.
It sounds very Slavic. Then, after a little while hearing it, I realise it has some Italian/Portuguese notes to it and then I understand it is Romanian I’m hearing.
Like an Eastern European trying to speak Italian. The vowels are very Russian, especially /ɨ/, there’s lots of sibilants and if you muffle it, it really sounds Russian: same tempo, same up and down tones.
It sounds like Italian with a Slavic influence accent, but it still sounds romance. Romanian spoken in Moldova sounds like a Russian speaking Italian in a pure Russian accent
To me it sounds a weird version of Italian.
I am learning it because I’m bored at work. It’s a really beautiful language if used in poetry but sometimes when people speak it it’s rash. It’s a really fascinating and unique language.
I still don’t know the way oina is played or if it’s even popular.
Sounds incredibly cool, kinda like if you took a late latin speaker and got him drunk
I’m an English speaker. I know it’s a Romance language, but it sounds very Slavic to my ear.
I’m French and Ukrainian and Romanian sounds like my grandpa’s dream of the perfect romance language.
Instead he spent his life murdering French.
Like a weird Catalan dialect, if I’m not taking lots of attention. I mean, I remember once the put a speech of Moldovan president or prime minister on the news (subtitled) and I was not really listening and I didn’t realise the language had changed till a moment I tried to understand and I realised I only could understand a couple of words per sentence, at most.
From a distance it sounds very similar to Italian or Spanish. Upon closer listening it sounds like “Italian but with a twist”. And then someone says da and I suddenly realize what language it really is!
The prettiest of the Romance languages IMO.
The accent sounds influenced by Albanian and Slavic languages.