Teach Yourself Romanian (Teach Yourself Book & CD) [Paperback]

Dennis Deletant (Author), Yvonne Alexandrescu (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 27, 2005 | ISBN-10: 0340906294 | ISBN-13: 978-0340906293

Romanian, because of its Latin origin and the fact that it has borrowed words from other Romance languages, will be recognisable to anyone who knows French or Italian. This book/CD course introduces both colloquial and written forms of Romanian. The emphasis is on learning to use Romanian in a variety of situations. No knowledge of grammatical terminology is assumed but traditional grammatical terms are included for those who are familiar with them. Most of the 2,000 words introduced in the course are those frequently used in everyday conversation, and many of the vocabulary items are listed in the Romanian-English and English-Romanian vocabularies at the end of the book. The 20 carefully graded units of dialogues, culture notes, grammar and exercises give you all you need to be able to cope with a whole range of situations and participate fully and confidently in all aspects of Romanian life. The page design has been improved and sections headings are given in English to make it easier for you to learn Romanian without a teacher. The accompanying recording (cassette or CD) has been recorded by native speakers and gives 70 minutes of listening practice. The recording is available separately or in a pack with the book.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Yvonne Alexandrescu has a PhD in Philology and was born in Romania, where she taught for over 20 years before coming to the UK. She has been a teacher at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in London for the last 14 years. Dennis Deletant is Professor of Romanian Studies, School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University College, London. He was awarded the OBE for services to British-Romanian relations in 1996 and was a member of the advisory board of the British Government's Know-Fund with special reference to Romania 1990-1999. He is currently Consultant to the EU on Romanian language materials in English.

Product Details

• Paperback: 272 pages
• Publisher: Teach Yourself (May 27, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0340906294
• ISBN-13: 978-0340906293
• Product Dimensions: 8.7 x 6.3 x 2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,853,341 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Great Place to Start, October 10, 2006

By 

David Hodges - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Teach Yourself Romanian (Teach Yourself CD) (Hardcover)

This book is a wonderful guide to grammar and vocabulary. I continually use it as a ready reference to check conjugations, declentions, &c. Organised into twenty-odd units, each part expands on the previous unit, and each new sample dialogue builds on everything learnt cumulatively, thus keeping the pupil actively practising the language.

In addition to grammar, the book contains short articles on the Romanian people, their history, culture, and religion. It is very informative and explains in the early units how one might get along in Romania if on a short vacation. However, all the information is there should one want to learn the language in far more depth.

The only caveat to this book is that if one wants to truly learn the language and the principles of pronunciation especially, the tapes are not optional. The book does not spend too much time explaining pronunciation and unlike Spanish, there are no hard and fast rules for the stresses applied to syllables. Without some form of audio assistance, learning the Romanian language (like any other languages) is nearly impossible.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Best Romanian Learning book out there!, July 22, 2007

By 

Kay (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Teach Yourself Romanian (Teach Yourself Book & CD) (Paperback)

As of 2007, there are very few Romanian Learning softwares or books on the market. From my experience, and I've bought a lot of them, this is the BEST.

It really teaches you as a beginner all the basic stuff and advances through the language. It tells you about colloquialisms, subtle and big differences in grammar and sentence structure, it really goes over everything. Plus it has nice little sections on Romanian culture/history to read about.

I have also bought the "Before You Know It" software: [...] And I found that using this software is great to make lists of the vocabulary presented in this book. It helps you learn it a lot easier.