Contents Meet the authors Only got a minute? Only got ten minutes? Introduction 1 Buna ziua Hello Hello and Goodbye; Thank you; Greetings; Asking people to speak more slowly; Romanian sounds 2 Pundnd intrebari Asking Asking for something; Numbers up to ten; Asking the price; Saying how much you want; Negative constructions 3 Sane prezentam Talking about yourself Introducing yourself; Saying where you are from; Asking how much, how many; Moresplurals; Numbers from 11 to 20 4 Cum sa ajung la Asking tne way Asking the way and understanding directions; Some prepositions; The forms for J, you, he, she, we, they; The verbs A fi to be, A avea to have, Asta to stay, A merge to go, A lua to take 5 Cat e ceasul? What is the time? The different types of verb; Adjectives; numbers up to 1,000; Telling the time; The points of the compass 6 Recapitulare Revision 7 Cautand camera la hotel Finding somewhere to stay The in Romanian; Addressing people; Reflexive verbs; The subjunctive; Saying also, still, another Contents vi viii 10 12: 31 44 59 62 Il10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 IV Planuri de viitor Planning ahead The future tense; The to and of forms of nouns; The days of the week and the months; Expressing in and at Ce s-a intaémplat? What has happened? The past tense; Adjectives denoting possession; Using the to the and of the forms of nouns; Reported speech Aceasta este a mea This is mine The forms for this and that; Saying her, him, it, us and them; Other forms of the future Lucram I was working Saying ! was doing, I was reading, etc; Saying to me, to you, to him, to her, to us and to them; saying all, every Daca as fi, as ... If I could, I would ... More about to me, to you, etc.; Saying I would, you would; saying nothing, never, nor Recapitulare Revision Obiectele personale People’s belongings More ways of expressing of; Saying mine, yours; Asking whose?; Saying whom, which; Countries, Towns and rivers Descriind oameni $i obiecte Describing people and objects Using adjectives before the noun; Saying the best the biggest, etc.; Saying I am invited, it was sent, etc. Cum s& comanzi Being authoritative When you need a doctor; Commands like Come here; Saying the one, the other, each $4 intram in amaGnunte Getting down to details More expressions of time, until, whenever, etc.; More uses of sa; More examples of pe; Saying first, second, third Rezultate Results More reflexive verbs; Saying so quickly that, so much that, etc.; Expressing doing, leaving, taking ° 77 94 110 127 143 158 162 178 193 208 22519 Orientare in spatiu Position 239 Saying I had seen, I had slept, etc.; Saying I might be going, I might have gone, etc.; Saying in front of, around, at the back of, etc. 20 Recapitulare Revision 253 Taking it further 260 Key to the exercises 262 Verb tables 278 Glossary of grammatical terms 295 Romanian-English vocabulary 299 English-Romanian vocabulary 311 Grammar index 324 ContentsVI Meet the authors Yvonne Alexandrescu I was born in Romania and completed my secondary and university education there. I started my career as a freelance tutor, interpreter and translator. After graduation, I taught French in a variety of colleges and high-profile institutions. In 1988 I moved to London and began teaching Romanian language and literature at London University’s School of Slavonic and East European Studies (SSEES) and for the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office. I have worked for the language school Communicaid since 1995, for the BBC World Service (Romanian section) and provided language training for both corporate and government sectors (the British Council, the Ministry of Defence, and The Department of International Development). I have worked with Dennis Deletant both at SSEES (University College London) and as joint authors of previous editions of Teach Yourself Romanian. Dennis Deletant | am Professor of Romanian Studies at the School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University College, London, and at the University of Amsterdam (on secondment). As a graduate of SSEES I studied on a British Council postgraduate scholarship for nine months in 1969, and thereafter visited the country frequently until 1988 when I was declared persona non grata as a result of my adverse comments on the Ceausescu regime in the British publishing and broadcasting media. In 1990, I acted as co-organizer of the British Book Appeal in aid of Central University Library in Bucharest - damaged by fire during the Romanian revolution in December 1989 — which assembled 400,000 volumes for despatch between January and April 1990, and in the same year was invited to join the advisory board of the British government’s Know-How Fund. I was actively involved inthe Romanian and Moldovan aspects of its work until the board was dissolved in 1999; for this service I was made an officer of the Order of the British Empire in 1995. I am the author of several monographs and volumes of studies on the recent history of Romania. Meet theauthors VIIgot a minute? surprised to learn that Romanian is a in language, belonging to the same family as French, Italian, Spanish and Portuguese. This is because Romania is tucked away in South-Eastern Europe, surrounded by non-Latin languages such as Hungarian, Ukrainian, Bulgarian, and Serbo-Croatian. Its grammar is almost entirely Latin, and it shares a host of words with the other Latin languages, notably French. To a speaker of French (and Italian) forms such as unul, una, doi, doud one, two ..., Mare sea, nostru our are instantly recognizable. There is an overlay of Siav words, and this influence is most evident in the use of da yes alongside Latin- originated nu no. The basic word order of Romanian is: subject- verb-object: eu am un bilet J have a ticket. The language is not difficult to pronounce, and broadly speaking, what you see on the page is what you hear. Romanians are delighted with those who learn to speak