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Rating: 
Summary: Helpful, but too many errors
Review: 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.
Rating: 
Summary: Not a good book for self-study
Review: Considering the scarcity of books in English describing the Romanian language, one hesitates to be too critical. However... I have never studied Romanian before, but I have studied enough languages to know that autodidactic books should be virtually free of errors and should anticipate reader concerns and questions. Unlike some of the other books in the Teach Yourself series, such as the *excellent* Teach Yourself Bulgarian, this book leaves way too much unexplained, and is full of errors of both the typographic and organizational sorts. To be honest, I only got to page 40, but here's a partial list of problems: -- there is no attempt to provide readers without the cassettes with approximations of the sounds of certain letters and combinations; --key phrases are presented that are not used in the dialogues, which are exceedingly short and don't seem to represent much effort; --unfamiliar words are used in exercises or dialogues that are not mentioned in the chapter, much less explained; --unfamiliar grammatical forms (e.g. -ul at the end of a noun) are used without any discussion whatsoever; --there are typos all over the place, even in the "puzzles" --alphabetic ordering in the vocabulary is not self-explanatory; --a major verb introduced in the section on verbal conjugations is not conjugated, and its pattern is not directly inferrable; --references to items "introduced in this unit" which were actually introduced in a previous unit. --aside from verbal conjugation, there is no convenient summary of other morphology in the back of the book Etc. etc. The shame of it is, this book is in its second edition. I would have hoped that someone might have put a little more effort into making this book a lot more reliable for people trying to learn the language on their own. As it is, I'll probably go back to Grigor Nandris' Learn Rumanian for English Speakers, old as it is (1974).
Rating: 
Summary: A complete, easy to use language course
Review: 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.
Rating:
Summary: A complete, easy to use language course
Review: 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.
Rating: 
Summary: Short and good course
Review: I enjoyed doing the course. The author claims that you will be able to use Romanian as used in daily life. This true for the most but do not expect to be able to translate poems or read specialist articles. Depending on your language background you have to learn a lot more words. This can not be expected from a short course. I am however able to go around in Romania, do my shopping, make myself clear in conversations and not feel totally helpless. This book does not waist time on useless practices. In fact every excercise is usefull and should be taken. It also serves as a very good reference guide on Romanian language after completion of the course. The accompanying tapes have been a great help.
Rating: 
Summary: not sure
Review: 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..
Rating:
Summary: Very good
Review: I would disagree with the earlier review criticising the apparent "lack" of pronunciation in the book. I have found Romanian pronunciation to be no more difficult than any other European language, and the book presents it in a way I found useful. The book's content is both appealing and very easy to understand. As you work through the units it is clear that Romanian is similar in many ways to French, Italian, Spanish etc., and this enables the learner to make progress quickly. This is the best Romanian language book I have found, and is a must for anyone intending to learn this language or travel to Romania.
Rating:
Summary: Good enough to teach basics - but you need a dictionary
Review: This book is great, a wonderful help in studying Romanian. I am a missionary to the countrym and have sought out as many books about Romanian as possible. I have asuggestion for anyone who goes there: Buy your Romanian laguage books in-country. There is a great selection of English/Romanian laguage books and CDs in places like Galati, Bucuresti, Brasov, Braila, etc. Another excellent resource is ... It offers a set of 5 CDs (Romanian/English) and an HTML format companion "book" for only ..., and that includes shipping and handling, as well as tax. The English is in an electronic "voice", forcing you to focus on the Romanian being spoken. The HTML document offers *COMPLETE* verb tables, companion reading for the cds, and a grammar guide. Worth the buy!
Rating:
Summary: so silly
Review: 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!)
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