Difficulties with Learning English
Some Romanians struggle with learning English because of differing linguistic features. These features include the following:
Take a look at the image below to see Romanian phonetics.
Some factors that influence these mistakes are
- English is not phonemic (there is not a one-to-one relationship between sound and spelling).
- The presence of sounds not found in Romanian – Romanian has no nasal vowels.
- The absence of sounds in English – English has three diphthongs while Romanian has over 10.
- The absence of gender in English.
Take a look at the image below to see Romanian phonetics.
Some factors that influence these mistakes are
- Where they studied English (many Europeans are taught RP English, not American English).
- If they started learning English at a younger age.
- If they learned primarily through written or conversational English (written English does not always reflect spoken English)