Customer Reviews

Discover Romanian: An Introduction to the Language and Culture

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I was searching for a book to explain things to me about the Romanian language. This one does. Yes, I needed the drill and vocabulary but I also needed some explanation of why the various phrases meant what they did. The authors have given these explanations in addition to the standard elements of language instruction. As someone who has studied language before I found this book to be a great way for me to associate the Romanian language with the other language elements I already know.

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.

This is the best book of its kind and is well worth the price if you are serious about learning REAL Romanian. Although there are other texts for learning Romanian, this is the only one written for American language learners and is full of information about every facet of Romania and its culture. The author is a Romanian American and college professor who really knows how to communicate the grammar and linguistic 'tricks' of this somewhat complicated language. It is also fun and includes lots of photos and drawings as well as many exercises, a dictionary and verb conjugations. My only preference would be to have answers to the exercises in the student text.

I've wanted to begin learning Romanian for a while now, and all of the usual texts didn't seem to be working. Botomans's DISCOVER ROMANIAN, however, has a clear, straight-forward text that makes learning easy and quite fun, I must say. The book even includes great passages and pictures depicting Romanian history and culture.... This is an expensive book, but absolutely well worth it for anyone who truly wants to get results from learning a language on their own.

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.

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.

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.

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.

This book is great if you're serious about really learning the language! I bought and went through "Teach Yourself Romanian", which was a good book but it wasn't as thorough on explanations of grammar and missed quite a few things too-I didn't quite grasp the concepts with Teach Yourself.., whereas with Discover Romanian I am. I still recommend that book however, or another basic learner, because although I do think "Discover Romanian" is a better book overall it's hard to go through if you do not have a native speaker at your disposal for helping you out, checking your answers on exercises(as others have said there's no answer key), etc. I might have had a harder time with Discover Romanian if I didn't already go through a lot of intro to Romanian books/computer programs.

And to comment on what others have said about the old spelling used in this book, yes it is used however it's extremely easy to change into the new spelling. It's mainly just 1 letter, so if you know the rules it's no issue at all.

Pros:
-Great thorough explanations of all the grammar nuances
-Good exercises-they're easy and repetitive, but that's what you need to learn!
-Good steady pace throughout the book. They don't throw too much at you at once so it's not overwhelming.
-Much easier to get a grasp on the grammar concepts with this book than with others.
-Accompanied illustrations with exercises are actually quite helpful!

Cons:
-You'll need someone to practice pronunciation with.
-and as others have said, there's no answer key to exercises-however they are easy exercises so it's not hard to figure out the answers or look back in the book to see how to answer them.

I got this book to try to learn Romanian about 1-2 years ago. It is FULL of information, not just about the language, but the history & culture of Romania. It is very thick, like a textbook, so it's not a rip-off like some other things I've purchased online that were more like pamphlets. It is, however, VERY difficult to learn a language on your own. Even with the help of a native speaker, this book got too confusing for me. When they try to explain things like "dative" & the different cases, well, I never learned that in English to begin with! I think I will try learning through CDs & computer programs. Still a good book to have.