SOUNDS OF THE ROMANIAN LANGUAGE

Voiced Sounds of the Romanian Language

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Romanian Language Phonetics

Sounds archive

   Vowels
   Consonants
   Diphthongs
   Sentences
      Standard prosody
      Emotional tones
      Linguistics particularities

Dialectal voices

   Colaboration - Prof. D. Scheianu
   RoToBi System

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Diphthong Recordings

In phonetics, a diphthong is a sequence of two subsequent vocal sounds within the same syllable, one being a vowel and the other a semivowel. A sequence of three vocal sounds within the same syllable is called a triphthong. If two neighbouring vowels occur in separate syllables, they make up a hiatus.

Here the Romanian language consonants are available to listening.

The diphthongs are classified according to the position of the vowel in descendant diphthongs (the vowel precedes the semivowel) and ascendant diphthongs (the diphtong ends in vowel) [cf. Wikipeadia].

The Romanian descendant diphthongs consist of a vowel followed by one of the emivowels /ĭ/ and /ŭ/. Any combination is possible, except the diphthong /uŭ/:

/aĭ/ like in mai
/aŭ/ like in dau
/eĭ/ like in lei
/eŭ/ like in leu
/iĭ/ like in mii (the same sound as both vowel and semivowel)
/iŭ/ like in fiu
/oĭ/ like in goi
/oŭ/ like in nou
/uĭ/ like in pui
/əĭ/ like in răi
/əŭ/ like in rău
/îĭ/ like in câine
/îŭ/ like in râu

The Romanian ascendant diphthongs consist of one of the semivowels /ĕ/, /ĭ/, /ŏ/ and /ŭ/, followed by a vowel:

/ĕa/ like in stea
/ĕo/ like in George
/ĭa/ like in ziar
/ĭe/ like in fier
/ĭo/ like in chior
/ĭu/ like in iubit
/ŏa/ like in oameni
/ŭa/ like in ziua
/ŭə/ like in două