# Pronunciation of the letter "e" in Romanian



## alevtinka

I am a little confused with the pronunciation of the letter "e" in Romanian.

In most cases, it is pronunced as "/ei/" as in the English words lAke, Able, pAY

But sometimes I hear it is pronounced as /e/, e.g. sEt, bEt, Egg.

And sometimes, when it is put in the ending or an unstressed syllable, I hear it as /er/, e.g. the romanian word carne (meat), similar to the English words drivER, lettER, neighbOUR.


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## jazyk

I don't think it's ever pronounced ei. It is sometimes (always?) pronounced ie at the beginning of words: este, etc.

Otherwise it's pronounced e.


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## alevtinka

jazyk said:


> I don't think it's ever pronounced ei. It is sometimes (always?) pronounced ie at the beginning of words: este, etc.
> 
> Otherwise it's pronounced e.



/ei/, I mean the sound that the letter "a" makes in the English word "late" - /leit/.


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## farscape

To the best of my knowledge, there are only two ways to pronounce the letter "e" in Romanian, as jazyk has stated already.

With the exception of _eu_, _ei_, _ea, el _and _este_, the sound is the same as e in keg, bed, egg, etc.

For the exceptions noted above, the sound is the same as *ye* in *YE*s. The pronoun _ea _is even more peculiar because the _e_ is pronounced like the English *e* in m*e*.

In summary:

eu is pronounced like ieu
ea is pronounced like ia
el is pronounced like iel
ei is pronounced like iei
este is pronounced like ieste

Everywhere else is *e* as in k*e*g, *e*gg, b*e*d, etc.

Best,


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## alevtinka

Jarzyk & farscape, thank you both )))


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## OldAvatar

farscape said:


> In summary:
> 
> eu is pronounced like ieu
> ea is pronounced like ia
> el is pronounced like iel
> ei is pronounced like iei
> este is pronounced like ieste
> 
> Everywhere else is *e* as in k*e*g, *e*gg, b*e*d, etc.
> 
> Best,



I think we should add that the sound <i> must be very subtle, sometimes barely audible.
If the <i> sound is a very obvious one than it adds a bit of a foreign flavour to the word.

Regards,
OA


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## traveling cloud

farscape said:


> In summary:
> 
> eu is pronounced like ieu
> ea is pronounced like ia
> el is pronounced like iel
> ei is pronounced like iei
> este is pronounced like ieste
> 
> Everywhere else is *e* as in k*e*g, *e*gg, b*e*d, etc.


It is also pronounced "ye" in the imperfect of verb "a fi":
eram, erai, era, eraţi, erau.


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## farscape

traveling cloud said:


> It is also pronunced "ye" in the imperfect of verb "a fi":
> eram, erai, era, eraţi, erau.



The list keeps growing indeed  Here is another one: 2nd pers. sing. from "a fi", *eşti*.

By the way, what's the difference between pronuncing "yeram" and "ieram"?

Thinking out loud, it's interesting that the Latin *exire* has morphed into the Romanian *a ieşi/ieşire* where the spelling follows the pronunciation but in all the cases noted above it hasn't

Later,


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