Romania Five - Text
Subject is Female, 40+, White, scenic/costume designer and college professor. Born and educated in Bucharest, Romania. Second language learned was Russian, starting around the third grade, when Romania was part of the old Communist Block. Learned English and French in high school. In her youth was fluent in Russian and French. Subject states that nowadays Romanian students are much more fluent in English with less distinctive accents than hers because they begin studying the language in primary school. She states that Romanians are usually taught British English. Her own teacher of English was British and married a Romanian woman. Has lived in eastern U.S. for almost 20 years.
The subject talks about her flight to New York when she came to live in the U.S.
Key Features:
Lightly tapped or flapped [r]. [k] for [g]. [i] for [I]. [s] for [th]. '-ing' suffix tends to shift to ' -ink' with little or no explosion on the final [k]. Spelled 'a' tends to get 'low back A.' Spelled 'o' pronounced [o] where American English speakers tend to use 'low back A.' Many final consonants stopped but not exploded. Altered stress. Notice the British English use of 'bath' as a verb, where the American word choice would be 'bathe.'