Letters and Their Pronunciation
See also: Romanian phonologyRomanian spelling is mostly phonetic. The table below gives the correspondence between letters and sounds. Some of the letters have several possible readings, even if allophones are not taken into account. When vowels /i/, /u/, /e/, and /o/ are changed into their corresponding semivowels, this is not marked in writing. Letters K, Q, W, and Y appear only in foreign borrowings; the pronunciation of W and Y depends on the origin of the word they appear in.
| Letter | Phoneme | Approximate pronunciation |
|---|---|---|
| A a | /a/ | a in "father" |
| Ă ă (a with breve) | /ə/ | a in "above" |
| Â â (a with circumflex) | /ɨ/ | the close central unrounded vowel as heard, for example, in the last syllable of the word roses for some English speakers, used inside the word, "bread" = "pâine" |
| B b | /b/ | b in "ball" |
| C c | /k/ | c in "scan" |
| /tʃ/ | ch in "chimpanzee" — if c appears before letters e or i (but not î) | |
| D d | /d/ | d in "door" |
| E e | /e/ | e in "merry" |
| /e̯/ | (semivocalic /e/) | |
| /je/ | ye in "yes" — in a few old words with initial e: este, el etc. | |
| F f | /f/ | f in "flag" |
| G g | /ɡ/ | g in "goat" |
| /dʒ/ | g in "general" or "giraffe" — if g appears before letters e or i (but not î) | |
| H h | /h/ | h in "house" |
| (mute) | no pronunciation if h appears between letters c or g and e or i (che, chi, ghe, ghi) | |
| I i | /i/ | i in "machine" |
| /j/ | y in "yes" | |
| /ʲ/ | (palatalization) | |
| Î î (i with circumflex) | /ɨ/ | Identical to Â, see above, used in the beginning and at the end of the word for aesthetic reasons, ex. "to learn" = "a învăța"; "to kill" = "a omorî" |
| J j | /ʒ/ | s in "treasure" |
| K k | /k/ | c in "scan" |
| L l | /l/ | l in "lamp" |
| M m | /m/ | m in "mouth" |
| N n | /n/ | n in "north" |
| O o | /o/ | o in "floor" |
| /o̯/ | (semivocalic /o/) | |
| P p | /p/ | p in "spot" |
| Q q | /k/ | k in "kettle" |
| R r | /r/ | alveolar trill or tap |
| S s | /s/ | s in "song" |
| Ș ș (s with comma) * | /ʃ/ | s in "sugar", sh in "shopping" |
| T t | /t/ | t in "stone" |
| Ț ț (t with comma) * | /ts/ | zz in "pizza" but with considerable emphasis on the "ss" |
| U u | /u/ | u in "group" |
| /w/ | w in "cow" | |
| V v | /v/ | v in "vision" |
| W w | /v/ | v in "vision" |
| /w/ | w in "west" | |
| /u/ | oo in "spoon" | |
| X x | /ks/ | x in "six" |
| /ɡz/ | x in "example" | |
| Y y | /j/ | y in "yes" |
| /i/ | i in "machine" | |
| Z z | /z/ | z in "zipper" |
* See Comma-below (ș and ț) versus cedilla (ş and ţ).
Read more about this topic: Romanian Alphabet
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