I’m romanian and took french in school. Absolutely not. We have so many common words that are completely slavic or otherwise non-romance. Marar, patrunjel, leustean, broasca, facalet, carucior, etc.
Even the words that exist in both languages are just pronounced too differently. Pain sounds nothing like paine. The first is a single syllable and the n is short and nasaly. The second is a 2-syllable word and you say every letter. In fact, unlike in french, you say almost every letter in romanian.
I can almost interpret or make educated guesses with most Germanic language but Slavic languages just don’t make any sense to me. Even (spoken) Asian languages are easier for me to guess at than Slavic. I am probably just weird though.
I do have a question though. Any English speaker that I have met that was learning a Slavic language found it just as difficult as I have. Is it just as hard for a natural Slavic language speaker to grasp English? (I am not trying to over-generalize here, but that may be unavoidable.)
(I am a language idiot, so excuse me if I am grouping languages incorrectly.)
Take this with a grain of salt, because I had a high school education that focused on English and got a Cambridge C2 proficiency certificate.
English has relatively simple grammar and sentence structure, and while spelling is inconsistent with pronunciation, it’s easier for me to intuit compared to French. I think the hardest sounds for us in English that aren’t tied to an accent are “th” (both in the “the” or “three” varieties) and the “soft” R (I don’t know what else to call it). “Earth” can sound pretty funny unless you practice.
I think it’s not uncommon for someone in Romania who speaks English to have a pretty thick accent but otherwise get most word order or conjugation right. That said, I think most people don’t speak English.
Another thing to keep in mind is that Romanian is technically a romance language, so any shared French loanwords will help too.
I’m romanian and took french in school. Absolutely not. We have so many common words that are completely slavic or otherwise non-romance. Marar, patrunjel, leustean, broasca, facalet, carucior, etc.
Even the words that exist in both languages are just pronounced too differently. Pain sounds nothing like paine. The first is a single syllable and the n is short and nasaly. The second is a 2-syllable word and you say every letter. In fact, unlike in french, you say almost every letter in romanian.
I can almost interpret or make educated guesses with most Germanic language but Slavic languages just don’t make any sense to me. Even (spoken) Asian languages are easier for me to guess at than Slavic. I am probably just weird though.
I do have a question though. Any English speaker that I have met that was learning a Slavic language found it just as difficult as I have. Is it just as hard for a natural Slavic language speaker to grasp English? (I am not trying to over-generalize here, but that may be unavoidable.)
(I am a language idiot, so excuse me if I am grouping languages incorrectly.)
Take this with a grain of salt, because I had a high school education that focused on English and got a Cambridge C2 proficiency certificate.
English has relatively simple grammar and sentence structure, and while spelling is inconsistent with pronunciation, it’s easier for me to intuit compared to French. I think the hardest sounds for us in English that aren’t tied to an accent are “th” (both in the “the” or “three” varieties) and the “soft” R (I don’t know what else to call it). “Earth” can sound pretty funny unless you practice.
I think it’s not uncommon for someone in Romania who speaks English to have a pretty thick accent but otherwise get most word order or conjugation right. That said, I think most people don’t speak English.
Another thing to keep in mind is that Romanian is technically a romance language, so any shared French loanwords will help too.