A complete, easy to use language course, March 19, 2000

I decided to learn Romanian because my grandmother was from Romania. She tried to teach me the language before she died, so the learning process has been a personal experience for me. This book has been great because it is very well organized and has really helped me along.

The pronunciation guide was very detailed, and the tapes are even better for learning pronunciation. It's not very hard, anyway -- similar to Italian. Each chapter is organized around a central theme or question, with the vocabulary derived from the theme. The grammar sections are pretty good. They don't try to give you too much grammar in the beginning, and build on what you've learned gradually.

Overall the book is geared a more to the tourist than to the student who wants to learn the language for knowledge's sake, but that's pardonable. Not many people attempt Romanian unless they are going to go there! The book is a valuable first course in Romanian, whether you're a veteran of foreign language study or this is your first attempt at a second language.

so silly, August 19, 2004

While course-books for learning English (so widespread) are so silly, what could you expect for a course on a less visible language such as Romanian? Can there be any more stupid approach? Get a competent teacher, if you are very lucky (we aren't many!)

Helpful, but too many errors, December 12, 2003
Reviewer: A reader
As others have noted, this book is fairly helpful, but it does contain many errors that could throw you off if you are not careful.
Although it is better than some of the other cassette and phrase books, it is too confusing to learn from on your own. The tape skips some of the key words and phrases listed, and then uses unexplained vocabulary in the dialogues. In one chapter, half the dialogue is missing.
Thankfully, my boyfriend is Romanian, and helped me, or else I would have never made it through the book.

not sure, November 5, 2003

I found this book as rather doing a disservice to both the reader and the Romanian language. It uses mostly old, formal and awkard forms of conversation, unusual gerundial verb modes (like it's been translated from english!) and a constant choice of using suffixes that distort words making them seem difficult. Overall, it unrealistically pushes the language away from its latin base instead of using that base as common ground for a reader of a different language.
I must say however that I have not read other similar courses out there so I could not make a fair comparison..

Good enough to teach basics - but you need a dictionary, December 5, 2002
Reviewer: A reader
If you buy the book with the cassettes it's not bad. I actually did learn to speak from it. But at least 15-20% of the words are unexplained, and you need a dictionary. I would have never been able learn without the dictionary.
As others say, the book has many errors, but I did not find them critical.
I was unhappy to see two 1/2 hour cassettes with the book. It's disingenuous to make people believing there is more material there than there is.

Very good basic book and set of tapes, November 2, 2002
Reviewer: A reader
Deciding what to buy for basic Romanian is a mess. There seem to be 3 overlapping texts out there by the same author, Dennis Deletant. It's unclear whether they are sold with or without casettes. Anyway, this book is very good. But the third edition of the 'Colloquial Romanian' by the same author has more material for those wishing to learn more. The material of the teach yourself book is somewhat humorous, colorful, quite doable. The cassettes have 1-2 texts per lesson only, and both cassettes last only about an hour. There should have been only one with more tape in it.