Language

Romanian (limba română) is the official language of Romania. The Romanian language is thus a language of Latin roots to which Slavic, German and Turkish elements were added later on, all testifying the contacts with different ethnic groups that influenced this territory’s history. The Romanian alphabet contains 31 letters, the 26 of the Latin, plus 5 others, called 'diacritics': ă (like the 'a' in English word 'musical'), ș (pronounced as 'sh'), ț (pronounced 'ts'), â & î (both pronounced like [ɨ] ).

If you’ve studied other Romance language, such as Italian, Spanish, French or Portuguese, you may feel at home sooner than you think. Romanian is a phonetic language, so words are pronounced as they are spelled.

English has quickly overtaken French as the country’s second language, especially with the young people. Communicating in English in Bucharest should not be a problem. French and German can also be useful. Other Romance languages (especially Spanish and Italian) are also studied by most people in schools and are therefore spoken with a pretty good level of fluency.