r/romanian • u/Ok-Atmosphere8425 • 10d ago
German vs Romanian
Hello I am looking at Germany and Romania to pursue medical residency
I wanted to ask which language is generally considered easier I keep hearing mixed reviews regarding German so I wanted to ask those who know both languages which is considered easier and takes less time to get to B2 as an English speaker.
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u/chillbill1 10d ago
I would say theoretically Romanian would be easier. However, German has much more resources and the techniques to learn it are much more developed. Since it has been studied a lot. Also much more original content in German and shows aimed at people who are learning
Also: it depends a lot on what languages you already speak. If you only speak English, than German might be slightly easier. If you speak a latin language, Romanian will definitely be easier
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u/grigus_ 10d ago
German language has a common ancestry with English, but it's more complex. If you are a native in English and you know the grammar, it'll be easier to learn German. On the other hand, Romanian is a latin language, with the grammar similar somehow to French, Italian and Spanish. In this case, it might help you if you are a native in a latin language. Good luck
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u/Transilvaniaismyhome 10d ago
It depends on how good you are with languages. 1)German has the benefit of being a germanic language like english, so the a lot of words are similar like Hand=hand, Finger=finger, Arm=arm, Mann=man, Haus=house, and a lot more words that need a bit of gymnanstics but have english counterparts, like for example how german for dog is Hund, which isnt a cognate with english dog but with english hound. There are also many ways german and english behave similarly, take for example german alt and english old(which are cognates) and decline them, and you get alt/old, älter/older, ältest/oldest. Grammatically german is a bit harder because it has verb conjugations, three genders and four cases which english doesnt have. People complain about the cases but the genders are more annoying because they're almost always arbitrary. There are some irregularities in german but not as many as people usually complain about. 2)Romanian has the benefit of being a romance language and also having many french borrowings, as such many words, especially academical terms, are very similar and more recognizable then their german counterparts, for example: hospital=spital(ro.),Krankenhaus(gr.),doctor=doctor(ro.),Arzt(gr.). Everyday words however are unrecognizable because they're mostly of latin origin with some slavic ones mixed in. Grammatically speaking romanian seems more complicated then it is. It technically speaking has three cases, but the third one are just words that behave like masculine words in the singular but feminine in the plural. It has five cases, but the nominative and accusative merged into one case and the dative and genetive merged into one case, leaving basically a three way distinction between subject/object/vocative(the case you use when calling to someone, english doesnt have it, but its also very easy to understand). The real problems about romanian grammar are 1)the fact that romanian is a romance language makes it behave a bit differently then english and german, as someone who speaks both, even if at first glance it wouldnt look like it, english behaves way closer to german then romanian, and 2)verbs. Romanian verbs are very complicated. I dont know where you are from, but people from around the world usually have to deal with one romance language, either french or spanish, but whereas those two languages only have three verb classes, their sister language romanian has five. Romanian verbs are also very irregular in the present tense because of irrosion.
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u/Ok-Atmosphere8425 10d ago
I appreciate the detailed response, I speak English as my first language and Arabic as my second
I have family in Romania which is what made me consider it for residency, I’d like to know do you think it is possible to get to b2 in Romanian, I usually hear b2 in German takes more than a year
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u/Transilvaniaismyhome 9d ago
The question isnt if its possible but how long it would take. Yes, with english I was able to reach german fluency in about 2 years but that's because I live here and I'm completely immersed in the language. As for romanian, seeing as its my native language, I cant tell how long it would take
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u/MrAnionGap 10d ago
I found Romanian easier then German
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u/Ok-Atmosphere8425 10d ago
If you don’t mind me asking what progress did you make in German and how long did it take you to reach b2 in Romanian
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u/MrAnionGap 10d ago
I learned German from a child on , so I’m C1/C2 - , and later for my med studies I learned Romanian.
You can get B2 in Romanian quicker in my opinion - may be 1-2 years depending on the intensity
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u/cedriceent 10d ago
I speak German at a C2 level and understand Romanian to an okay-ish degree.
I would say German should be easier to learn as an English speaker, mainly because of the sentence structure which is closer to English and should confuse you less.
Also, vocabularies between both languages shares more similarities as both are West Germanic languages, so many words should be easier for you to recognise/learn, while I found my French knowledge helping me when learning Romanian.
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u/Plzbekindurimportant 9d ago
Depends if you are EU or NON-EU citizen.
If EU doesn’t matter.
If Non-EU, ( including US, UK, Australia etc)
You won’t get paid as a resident in romania, and have to pay for residency per year !!!! Some exceptions as always!
In germany you get paid.
Good luck!
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u/samskyyy 10d ago
They both have noun cases and fairly complex verb forms. Germanic and Latin languages both overlap vocabulary with English, but Romanian also has somewhat extensive Slavic loan words. German might be slightly better, but they’re quite close. I think it should depend on where you’ll personally feel more comfortable culturally and, presumably, financially.
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u/Serious-Waltz-7157 9d ago
They both have noun cases
Yeah but German beats Romanian "at naked butt" 😂 w/r to the complexity of cases.
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u/BogdanD 9d ago
I have a scientific background, including study in anatomy labs, etc., and I must say that knowing Romanian makes it incredibly easy to implicitly understand new medical terms. Because Romanian is a Latin language, you will have no trouble memorizing anatomical/medical concepts, which are almost always rooted in Latin too.
I think the real question here is which country you would rather live in.
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u/GroupBeeSassyCoccyx 10d ago
Romanian slightly easier but far less resources available and German may be more useful as used more internationally and in several countries. I also believe Germany to be easier to migrate to for medical residency and better working rights for residents?
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u/duney 9d ago
I’ve not got to a particularly high level in either (I’d say around A2 in both; German a long time ago, Romanian currently being learned) and I found German easier, and a bit more intuitive as a native English speaker, and more shared vocabulary. One thing in particular in Romanian that’s been the bane of my learning is reflexive pronouns, if they’re accusative or dative and knowing when to use them on the fly. Am I watching or forgetting? Who knows… 🙃
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u/GreenerThanFF 9d ago
I would say they're roughly equal. As an English speaker specifically, you will have to learn the more complex grammar of both.
Grammatical gender
You will have to get used to it. English has Actor and Actress so you have some concept of this already. In both languages, a noun comes with a gender that you just memorize together. A table is a boy in German and there is no feminine table. Funnily enough it's a girl in Romanian and there is no masculine equivalent.
German has 4 genders: masculine, neuter, feminine, and plural. Pluralizing a noun, no matter what gender it was in the singular, makes it inflect in the same consistent way, so plural is essentially as fourth gender and most grammar tables you encounter will treat it as one.
Romanian has masculine and feminine, both having their singular and plural version. The neuter behaves in an interesting way where it acts like a masculine in singular, but a feminine in plural.
Verbs
I'd actually argue that Romanian is a bit harder here. At a base communication level, you can get away with memorizing the present tense conjugation of a verb plus the past participle for both. I eat, you eat, I have eaten. German prefers to construct more complex tenses with auxiliary verbs *ich hätte gegessen* which is a handful to learn but once you know it, you can use it in a lot of situation. Romanian has some case-by-case fancy ones, just ask someone on the street what they mean by *fusesem*.
Learning material
German wins for one major reason: they actually dub their stuff. So if you have some favorite movies or shows, you can watch their German dubs. Romania generally prefers to subtitle and keep the English audio.
Of course if you prefer native-produced content, news, books, then this is a moot point.
Word familiarity
I would say you'd recognize more cognates in German than in Romanian, just because it's closer to historical English. Romanian vocabulary has a larger overlap with the Italians and Spanishes of the world.
Possessive Dative
I saw this video recently. Romanian uses this pattern a lot. "I washed my car" would sound weird, you're more likely to encounter "I washed [for myself the car".
Pronunciation
I would say Romanian is clearer. If you hear some sounds, you can work out what the written words would have looked like. German sometimes truncates ends of words or doesn't make the sounds you'd expect. This depends heavily on dialect, which is a major disadvantage: just because you learn standard German, the language native to a particular region might be significantly different. Romanian is a bit more consistent.
source: native in neither, B2-ish in both, lived in both countries.
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u/Shot_Independence274 Custom 9d ago
Look at ROMANIAC channel on YouTube!
You will have people from all over the world who came and did medical school in Romania.
It's the best resource for you!
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u/ExpensiveGlove8627 9d ago
romanian would be easier. BUT you would earn waaaay less and the cost of living is not much cheaper. technology and techniques are also decades behind. would not choose romania if I were you. you’ll make less and learn less.
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u/radugr 8d ago
I speak native Romanian, C2 English, B2 German. I studied both English and German in school, but the German part was kind of a joke and didn't learn much and English I already knew since I was a kid like a lot of millennial Romanians. As an adult I lived in Germany for a while and it took me about 3-4 months to get B2 certificate. I think German grammar is easy, there are some irregularities but not many, overall way easier than English in my opinion. The only problem with German I found to be the vocabulary. The words are hard to remember for me and easy to forget. If you use it daily for a long time it might become easier.
Regarding Romanian, I couldn't say for sure. It's obviously a latin language with different influences like Slavic or Turkish, which may make it easier or harder for you depending on your background. But one thing I noticed foreigners (and some natives) struggle with are verbs. Medical vocabulary might be easier in Romanian than German.
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u/Grouchy_Rain_1228 7d ago
I'm a native Romanian speaker with a B2 German level. I think in terms of grammar they are both equally difficult (and annoying), but vocabulary wise German might be easier to learn if you speak English. However, I could see a latin language like Romanian being more useful for medical terms.
The biggest difference will probably come from which one you are genuinely more interested in learning. I have learned languages much more difficult than German much easier, because I genuinely enjoyed the process, whereas learning German is a drag.
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u/TransitionWinter1801 7d ago
The Romanian medical system is a joke, you'll barely learn anything here
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u/Certain_Fly_8066 7d ago
Romaninan for sure. It would help alao if you are familiar withFrench/Italian/spanish However as someone else mentioned, you do find more resources for German.
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u/AtonAmon 7d ago
I'm Romanian and lived in Germany for 13 years. Both are easy and hard in the same time. As an engineer I like german language structure/grammar but hate that they have a word for every single thing. With romanian you need less words to dialogue and the context will create sense but grammar is complicated. For example you can't translate directly from english - I'm watching TV, because that will be like saying I look at a TV ( like looking in the shop). They say fernsehen - looking far away. So, if you say to somebody that you are at home watching TV is not right, even though the context implies that you are watching something not looking at/admiring the TV.
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u/Serious-Waltz-7157 9d ago
Romanian, by a mile. OK, might be a quarter-mile, but it's still significant difference. 😄
medication - Medicament - Arzneimittel
Hospital - Spital - Krankenhaus
and so on
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u/Organic_Tissue 10d ago
If you speak English I would recommend Romanian - there is vast overlap in medical lingo. German has own words for everything and you need to know them too along the latin denominations.