Home / Best apps to learn a language / Romanian
Prices and language coverage checked in September 2026.
Romanian has about 22 million native speakers by Wikipedia’s count, 17.3 million of them in Romania and 2.18 million in Moldova, and a diaspora of about 5.9 million. It is a Romance language, 77% of its vocabulary shared with Italian by Ethnologue’s lexical similarity, with a Slavic layer of about 14% of the core vocabulary by Marius Sala’s count. What Romanian asks of an app is grammar the other Romance languages lack: the definite article stuck on the end of the noun, two case forms and a vocative, a neuter and să before the verb.
The big apps are thin here. Babbel, Busuu, Rosetta Stone, Speak and Language Transfer have no Romanian, Memrise has only user word lists, Duolingo’s course is A1 by an unofficial tracker’s label, Pimsleur sells one Level and Mango 105 lessons. The depth sits with the Romanian Cultural Institute’s online modules to B2, with tutors and with two YouTube teachers. So the apps below are compared on where they stop, what is left free on day 30, whether anyone explains the cases and the article, and whether a person corrects you.
The US Foreign Service Institute puts Romanian in category I (of I to IV), about 750 class hours for an English speaker to reach professional working proficiency.
Moldova named its state language Romanian by a law promulgated on 22 March 2023, after a 2013 Constitutional Court ruling; the Latin script came back by a law of 31 August 1989, and Romania’s spelling rules by an Academy of Sciences recommendation of 2000, applied in schools in 2016. Speech differs: Russian loans and a Moldavian accent, since Russian has stayed more common in Moldova, per Wikipedia. Every app offers one Romanian course and no Moldovan one; Pimsleur’s page still says “Moldovan” for Moldova. Learn the standard, and book a Preply tutor from Moldova if you are heading there.
By Ethnologue’s lexical similarity Romanian shares 77% of its vocabulary with Italian, 75% with French and 71% with Spanish, and 78% of its core vocabulary is Latin and Romance by Marius Sala’s count. What no Romance language prepares you for: the definite article as a suffix (omul, casa, cărțile), a genitive-dative form beside the nominative-accusative, a vocative, a neuter, and să with the subjunctive. Watch the false friends too, per DEX: magazin is a shop, sensibil is sensitive, a pretinde is to demand. Lean on the shared words, and pick an app or a teacher that explains the endings.
Romanian spelling follows sound, on rules the Romanian Academy set on a phonological principle by 1881, with 5 letters of its own: ă, â, î, ș and ț. Since 1993 the same sound is written â inside a word and î at its ends, and sunt replaced sînt. The comma letters ș and ț entered Unicode 3.0, and Microsoft’s fonts with them arrived in May 2007, so older texts and many websites still print ş and ţ with a cedilla, which breaks search. Pick apps with native audio beside the text, and type the comma letters from the first day.
Duolingo’s Romanian is A1 by an unofficial tracker’s label and about A2 by a Clozemaster blog, with 62 units and no Stories, and Romanian was not among the 9 courses Duolingo took to B2 in April 2026. Pimsleur sells one Level of 30 lessons, about 15 hours; Mango has 105 lessons and no level; Memrise has no official course; Ling sells a course at US$16.99 a month with no published level. The Institutul Cultural Român teaches to B2.2 by its own labels, in 40 hour modules. Past A2, plan on the ICR, a tutor, the news and books.
The state certificate is the Institutul Limbii Române’s atestat, 6 levels from A1 to C2 for 250 lei, online on Zoom in 2026; the University of Bucharest’s CLS Ariel certificate costs 400 lei. Naturalisation after 8 years of residence is tested at an interview. Since Law 14/2025, in force on 15 March 2025, the descent route (articles 10 and 11) needs a B1 certificate, unless the applicant was a citizen before, is 65 or over, or shows 3 years of schooling in Romanian; OUG 16/2026 gives until 15 March 2027 to file it. Book the level your file names.
Best free daily course
The Romanian course is A1 by an unofficial tracker’s label, with 62 units and 1,082 lessons, and about A2 by a Clozemaster blog; Romanian was not among the 9 courses Duolingo took to B2 in April 2026. There are no Stories for Romanian. It builds a daily habit for the first months, then you need more.
Good
Where it stops
Best for: A free daily Romanian habit from zero to A1; on a laptop, without the Energy cap.
Best structured course to B2
The Romanian Cultural Institute teaches Romanian for foreigners in 40 hour modules from A1.2 to B2.2 by its own labels, in Bucharest or online, at 1,000 lei a module; the autumn 2026 module runs from 21 September to 26 November. It is the one syllabus to B2 with a teacher that we found for Romanian.
Good
Where it stops
Best for: A1 to B2 learners who want a syllabus and a teacher, online in the evening or in Bucharest, and can pay in lei or euros.
Best live tutors
Preply lists 165 Romanian tutors, rated 4.97 on average by 2,126 customers, from US$8 an hour, and its Romanian page prints averages by country: US$22 an hour for tutors from Romania, US$25 from Moldova. With so few apps for Romanian, a tutor matters sooner: below B1, pick a trained teacher who can explain the cases in your language.
Good
Where it stops
Best for: Anyone from A1 who needs a person to talk to and to explain the cases, from Romania or from Moldova.
Best free course with a library card
A course built on conversations, and a short one for Romanian: 4 units, 20 chapters and 105 lessons by a June 2026 table on Wikipedia, with no level from Mango. Many US public libraries give it free with a library card, which makes it a second free start beside Duolingo.
Good
Where it stops
Best for: Beginners with a US library card who want a course at no cost, to about A2 by our estimate.
Best for reading real books
Lingo7 puts a translation in your own language under every sentence of a Romanian book (49 languages), reads it aloud and drills saved words in 12 kinds of exercise. Its shelf is 4 books, all C1 by our estimate: start with the Stories and the classics you import from Romanian Wikisource. It is our app, and it has no course.
Good
Where it stops
Best for: A2 and B1 learners reading the Stories, anyone with their own Romanian EPUBs, and C1 readers who want Caragiale or Eminescu with their own language under the text.
Best for speaking from lesson one
Pimsleur’s Romanian is one Level of 30 audio lessons, about 15 hours, in which you answer out loud and words come back at spaced intervals. Pimsleur publishes no CEFR level, sells no Romanian Level 2, and its page still calls the language “Moldovan” in Moldova. A month of Romanian Premium covers the 30 lessons at one a day.
Good
Where it stops
Best for: A trip in a month, a commute or anyone who wants to say their first Romanian sentences out loud before they read.
Best free video lessons
Nico has taught Romanian on YouTube since 2015, on verbs, pronunciation and Romanian songs, for 28,000+ subscribers, the largest channel devoted to teaching Romanian by an August 2026 list from a Romanian teacher, who calls it active. It explains what Duolingo only drills, and nobody corrects you.
Good
Where it stops
Best for: A1 and A2 learners who want the grammar and the sounds explained by a teacher at no cost, beside a course.
Best for video input
Romanian subtitles and a translation into your language side by side on YouTube, with a dictionary on click; the subtitles and lookups cost nothing, and Romanian is one of the 27 languages in its Chrome Web Store listing. The Netflix side broke in June 2026 and in September works with known bugs.
Good
Where it stops
Best for: B1 and up with a laptop, turning Romanian YouTube into listening practice.
Best for everyday spoken Romanian
Easy Languages posts its Romanian videos in two playlists on its main channel, Easy Romanian’s street interviews and Super Easy Romanian, the slower one; the project has no channel of its own yet, per easy-languages.org. It is input, not a course, and a Romanian teacher’s August 2026 list calls it active.
Good
Where it stops
Best for: A2 learners and up who want to hear how Romanian speakers talk in the street, at no cost.
Best for reading with audio
LingQ lists Romanian among its languages, with “a vast Romanian library” and “1000’s of hours” of audio lessons with transcripts in its own words, and turns any Romanian article, ebook or YouTube video into a lesson with a dictionary on each word. It prints no count for Romanian, so plan on importing your texts; the free tier is a demo.
Good
Where it stops
Best for: B1 and up readers who import Romanian news and podcasts, with the budget for it.
Best for cases in sentences
Clozemaster has Romanian from English: fill the missing word in a real sentence, and the case endings and the article on the end of the noun come up in every one. Its source, Tatoeba, holds 41,485 Romanian sentences; Clozemaster prints no Romanian count of its own.
Good
Where it stops
Best for: Ten minutes a day on the endings from A2 upward, beside a course or a book.
Best vocabulary trainer
Free spaced repetition with shared Romanian decks on AnkiWeb: Romanian vocabulary with audio (3,680 notes, updated 26 March 2026), Romanian Sentences (3,001 notes, 2023) and the vocabulary of Rodica Boțoman’s Discover Romanian (3,763 notes, 2017). It is the cheapest way to keep the words you meet, and it teaches nothing on its own.
Good
Where it stops
Best for: Keeping the words you met in videos, books and lessons, at any level.
Duolingo + Mango Languages + Learn Romanian with Nico
Pick one course and do it every day: Duolingo if the game keeps you going, Mango Languages if your US library card covers it. Beside it, watch Learn Romanian with Nico for the sounds and the verbs a course only drills, and learn every noun with its article on the end. Pimsleur is the paid choice if you want to speak before you read.
Institutul Cultural Român + Clozemaster + Preply
Duolingo stops at A1 by the tracker’s label, so move to a course that goes on: the Institutul Cultural Român’s 40 hour modules run from A1.2 to B2.2 by its labels, online or in Bucharest. Drill the endings with Clozemaster, 30 sentences a day for free, and book a Preply tutor once a week who explains the cases. Start reading with Lingo7’s Stories at A2, then the bilingual readers you import; its shelf is 4 books at C1 by our estimate.
Lingo7 + Language Reactor + Preply
Courses thin out here. Read your own Romanian books in Lingo7, such as Creangă and Caragiale from Romanian Wikisource, and the 4 classics on its shelf, C1 by our estimate; watch Digi24 and Recorder on YouTube with Language Reactor, add Radio România’s podcasts, and talk about all of it with your tutor. With an ILR certificate date, book a tutor who has taught that exam.
| App | Role | Levels | Coverage for Romanian | Free | Price |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Duolingo | Best free daily course | A0 to A1 | One Romanian course, the Romania standard; A1 by an unofficial tracker’s label, about A2 by a Clozemaster blog; 62 units and 1,082 lessons by that tracker, no Stories | Every lesson; Energy cap on a phone | US$13 to 17 a month, US$7 to 10 a month yearly |
| Institutul Cultural Român | Best structured course to B2 | A1 to B2 | Romania standard; A1.2 to B2.2 by the ICR’s labels in 40 hour modules; ICR Brussels A1 and B1 on Zoom | None | 1,000 lei a 40 hour module |
| Preply | Best live tutors | A1 to C2 | 165 Romanian tutors; averages of US$22 (Romania) and US$25 (Moldova, Ukraine) an hour by country, per the Romanian page | None | Average US$25 an hour, subscription only |
| Mango Languages | Best free course with a library card | A0 to A2 | Romania standard; 4 units, 20 chapters, 105 lessons by a June 2026 table on Wikipedia; no level stated | Free through many US libraries | Free via many libraries; US$10 a month yearly |
| Lingo7 | Best for reading real books | A2 to C1 | 4 public domain books, all C1 by our estimate; Stories in two versions, adapted for A1 to A2 and original for B1 to B2; your own books in 7 formats (EPUB, PDF, FB2, DOCX, TXT, Markdown, HTML); native audio in a Romania accent; translation into 49 languages | First page of each book | US$5 a month, US$2.50 a month yearly |
| Pimsleur | Best for speaking from lesson one | A0 to A1 | Level 1 only: 30 lessons, about 15 hours; no vendor CEFR claim; the page still says “Moldovan” for Moldova | 7 day trial | About US$20 a month, or about US$150 once |
| Learn Romanian with Nico | Best free video lessons | A1 to A2 | Lessons since 2015 on verbs, pronunciation and songs; 28,000+ subscribers per an August 2026 list; beginner to A2 by that list | All the videos | Free |
| Language Reactor | Best for video input | B1 to C2 | Any Romanian YouTube video with subtitles; Romanian among 27 languages in the Chrome Web Store listing, updated 1 July 2026; Netflix working with known bugs in September 2026 | Most of it | US$6 a month, US$3.33 a month yearly |
| Easy Romanian | Best for everyday spoken Romanian | A2 to B2 | Two playlists on the Easy Languages channel, Easy Romanian’s street interviews and Super Easy Romanian; no channel of its own; A2 and up by our estimate | All the videos | Free |
| LingQ | Best for reading with audio | B1 to C1 | Romanian supported, library size not published; imports of any text or YouTube video | 20 saved words | US$15 a month, US$10 a month yearly |
| Clozemaster | Best for cases in sentences | A2 to B2 | Romanian from English; sentences drawn from Tatoeba, which holds 41,485 in Romanian; no vendor count | 30 sentences a day | US$13 a month, US$7 a month yearly |
| Anki | Best vocabulary trainer | A1 to C1 | Shared Romanian decks: vocabulary with audio (3,680 notes, 2026), sentences (3,001 notes), a textbook’s vocabulary (3,763 notes) | All of it (iOS US$24.99) | Free; iOS US$25 once |
Prices are US store or vendor prices as of September 2026, yearly plans shown as the monthly equivalent. The same app often costs less on its own site than in the App Store, and more in Europe than in the US.
Free on this site: public domain Romanian books you can open in the app, and short Romanian texts at A1, A2 and B1 with a translation.
We have no affiliate deals with any app named here, and none of the links pay us. Prices and coverage come from the vendor’s own help or pricing pages or its US store listing, checked in September 2026, and every other figure names its source in the text; the judgement calls lean on independent reviews, and on the one star reviews for the parts a landing page never shows, like what happens on renewal. Where a vendor’s pages contradict each other, the card says so.
Refund rules, the traps to avoid and the same apps compared by level for every language are on the best apps to learn a language page.
For a start, yes, and it is free: 875,000 learners by Duolingo’s own course list, and 62 units and 1,082 lessons by an unofficial tracker’s count. On its own it is not enough: that tracker labels it A1 and a Clozemaster blog about A2, Romanian was not among the 9 courses Duolingo took to B2 in April 2026, there are no Stories, and on a phone Energy runs out after about 2 to 3 lessons a day, by a third-party count (the web version runs on hearts). Add Learn Romanian with Nico for the grammar, Mango through a US library card, and a person to talk to once you can put a few sentences together.
They are one language: Moldova named its state language Romanian by a law promulgated on 22 March 2023, after a 2013 Constitutional Court ruling, and it has used the Latin script since a law of 31 August 1989 and Romania’s spelling since the Academy of Sciences recommended it in 2000, applied in schools in 2016. Every app offers one Romanian course and no Moldovan one. The difference is in speech: Russian loans and a Moldavian accent, since Russian has stayed more common in Moldova than in Romania, per Wikipedia. If Moldova is where you are heading, Preply lists tutors from Moldova at US$25 an hour on average, and a tutor is the one way among these apps to hear it.
Yes. The state certificate is the Institutul Limbii Române’s atestat: 6 levels from A1 to C2, 250 lei, held online on Zoom in 2026 with two written tests and an oral. The University of Bucharest’s CLS Ariel certificate costs 400 lei and is valid for 2 years. Naturalisation after 8 years of residence (5 if married to a citizen) is tested at an interview. Since Law 14/2025 the descent route (articles 10 and 11) needs a B1 certificate from the ILR, the ICR or an accredited university, with exemptions for former citizens and people 65 and over, and 3 years of Romanian schooling accepted instead; OUG 16/2026 gives until 15 March 2027 to file it.
Reading helps once you know the endings, and Romanian spelling tells you most of how a word sounds, though not where the stress falls, but graded readers are scarce: Olly Richards and Lingo Mastery publish none. Read with audio. Lingo7, our app, puts a translation under each sentence of a Romanian book, reads it aloud in a Romania accent and drills the words you save in 12 kinds of exercise, for US$5 a month or US$30 a year. Its Romanian shelf is 4 books, all C1 by our estimate (Caragiale, Eminescu, Slavici and Queen Marie’s Țara mea), so begin with its Stories, then import Vasile’s bilingual stories or Geantă’s fairytales and Creangă’s Povești free from Romanian Wikisource.
For a course, Duolingo: every lesson is free, to A1 by an unofficial tracker’s label, with Energy capping study on a phone. With a US library card, Mango Languages, 105 lessons with native audio. For the grammar and the sounds, Learn Romanian with Nico and Romanian with Gia on YouTube, and Dana Cojocaru’s Romanian Grammar, a free PDF that a Romanian teacher’s 2026 list recommends. For the endings, Clozemaster’s 30 free sentences a day and Anki’s shared Romanian vocabulary with audio deck. For the ear, Easy Romanian, Digi24 and Radio România’s podcasts; for every word, DEX online. For a tutor you pay: Preply from US$8 an hour on a subscription, or italki pay as you go.
The words, yes: by Ethnologue’s lexical similarity Romanian shares 77% of its vocabulary with Italian, 75% with French and 71% with Spanish, and 78% of the core vocabulary is Latin and Romance by Marius Sala’s count. The grammar is where it differs: the definite article goes on the end of the noun (omul, casa, cărțile), nouns have a genitive-dative form and a vocative, there is a neuter, and să comes before the verb in the subjunctive. About 14% of the core vocabulary is Slavic by Sala’s count, and Macrea’s count of a whole dictionary adds Turkish, Greek and Hungarian words. Expect the reading to come fast and the endings to take a course or a tutor.
None of the big apps explains them: Duolingo drills patterns, Pimsleur is audio with no grammar by design, and Drops and uTalk teach words. The Institutul Cultural Român’s modules to B2.2 have a teacher, and a Preply tutor can explain the genitive-dative and the suffixed article in your language. For free, Learn Romanian with Nico’s videos and Dana Cojocaru’s Romanian Grammar, the reference grammar a Romanian teacher’s 2026 list recommends. For drills, Clozemaster puts the endings in real sentences, 30 a day free, and Anki’s Romanian Sentences deck (3,001 notes) does the same offline.
Read your first page free, in Romanian.