What other language may help me learn Romanian?

Question

What other language may eventually help me learn Romanian?
I have to take a series of required courses, but my college only offers: Greek, Italian, German, Latin, Russian, Spanish, French, Hebrew, Polish, Swahili, Ukrainian, and Yoruba.
Eventually, I would like to also learn Romanian (on my own and with the help of other native speakers) because my fiancé's family is Romanian. What language courses may help me in learning Romanian down the road?

Answer 1

Essentially, Latin, because Latin is the ancestor language of Romanian.

Beyond that, the other Romance languages, Italian, Spanish, and French are also descendants of Latin, and so that have some similarity to Romanian.

From what I know, the grammar of Romanian remains closer to that of Latin than the other Romance languages (especially, Romanian retains some of the cases of Latin, whereas the other Romance languages have lost them), so I would say that Latin is highly recommended.

Answer 2

Like John C said Italian would probably be most likely to help you. While the two languages aren't what you'd call mutually intelligeable the do have many similarities. Spanish, Latin, and French are a bit more of a stretch. The other languages probably would not help you very much as far as learning Romanian because they are not even in the same language family. I would suggest you learn Italian first (which actually is a very beautiful language with a great culture) then try learning Romanian on your own like you said.
Best of luck

Answer 3

Since Romanian is structurally quite different from the western Romance languages, none of these will quite serve as a silver bullet or panacea for learning Romanian.

However, some knowledge of Italian, Spanish or French will still be helpful since much of the basic word stock is the same. For example, "green" and "meat" are carne and verde in Romanian just as they are in Itlaian. The Romanian word for "birch tree" mesteacãn, is related to French mastique (resin), and the Romanian word for grandfather, "bunic" and cat "pisicã" make sense if you realize that they are related to dialectal French bonique (old man) and dialectal Italian pisa (cat).

Although German and Russian are not Romance languages, they would still be helpful in learning Romanian because thier nouns have three geneders: masculine, feminine and neuter just like Romanian. Romanian also has numerous Slavic loans words similar to those found in Russian e.g. vrabie "sparrow," cf. Russian vorobei, copitã. "hoof" cf. Russian kopito, granit,ã "border" cf. Russian granitsa.

Of course, don't forget Latin too. It is the ultimate ancestor of Romanian and some aspects of Romanian are still similar to Classical Latin. Take the phrase: "Mult e dulce s,i frumoasã limba ce vorbim" (Very sweet and beautiful is the language we speak). In Latin you could have said "Multis est dulcis sic linguam quam verba loquimur." So, Romanian has still retained much of its orignal Latin character down through the ages despite numerous foreign influences.

Answer 4

Spanish, French and Italian are related to Romanian. Latin is too but it's not spoken so it's not as useful. My recommendation is Spanish because it's widely spoken and very similar to Romanian. That's an amazing choice of languages at your school!

Answer 5

I'm Polish, I know a bit Romanian and I can state that Romanian is much easier to learn than Polish. Romanian is linked from French, Italian, Latin. Polish is Slavic, which is much harder to learn well.

Answer 6

Romanian is actually more like half Slavic and half Romance (latin based). Look at the word Da, which means yes, when the other Romance languages have Oui, Si, Si, and Si. The Russian is да /da/. Having experience with both will help you. Latin is the only one with 3 genders like Romanian and Bulgarian I believe is the only (other) Slavic language that has definite articles at the end. The pronunciation matches a bit like Italian though.

Answer 7

So, romanian is a latin language, and considering that 70% of the words belong to latin language, i suggest you try studying the latin ones, mostly italian and spanish...it also has many turkish influences, but stick to the latin part... where is your bf from, anyway :)

Answer 8

My fiance' is Romanian also and I think any Latin based language would help. I hear alot of French and Italian words in it, so maybe one of those? French probably would be best becuase it's a required course in school in Romania, so you would have a better chance of meeting in the middle there.

Answer 9

any of the romance languages will help you get the grammatical structure down and what have you.

so out of your list Latin, Italian, Spanish, or French would be your best bets

Answer 10

english many word r alike
http://www.languageguide.org/
http://mylanguageexchange.com/