c – this has a hard ‘k’ sound before –a –o and –u or a consonant it can combine with, such as –l or –r, as in English. It becomes a ‘ch’ as in ‘church’ before –e and –i. If it is followed directly by –h, this prevents it ‘softening’ to ‘ch’.

Listen to:

Acceptaţi cărţi de credit? (Buying things. General phrases).

Trebuie să schimb? (Getting around. General phrases).

Sunt aici cu afaceri (Conversation. Small talk. 2).

g – behaves similarly, with hard and soft sounds like the two ‘g’s’ in ‘garage’, and also hard at the end of a word, as in vă rog (‘please’):

gura, degetul (Parts of the body) .

h – is sounded when it starts a syllable on its own, as in harta and hotelul, but in Romanian is less obvious in a consonant cluster such as in îngheţata (Words to do with food. General).

j – like ‘s’ in ‘measure’:

Care este jucătorul d-voastră preferat? (Conversation. Small talk. Sport ).

ş – like ‘sh’:

Aş dori să rezerv o masă pentru două persoan (Eating. Phrases. 1) illustrates the difference between ş and s .

ţ – like ‘ts’ in ‘bits’:

Sunaţi poliţia! (Emergencies).

z – like the ‘z’ in ‘zipper’

Ş and ţ are sometimes written with a cedilla as ș and ț . This is considered less correct by the Romanian Language Academy.