română · English

Learn Romanian with short stories

Read Romanian books with English alongside, or English books with Romanian alongside: the original and the translation side by side, paragraph by paragraph.

Free Romanian–English stories and ebooks

Stories to read in Romanian, with the English beside each paragraph. They open in the browser, with no account needed, and each one is also a free Romanian–English ebook for Kindle, Kobo or any e-reader: downloading needs a free account, no payment (which file to pick).

Open the Romanian–English library, where you can search the stories and filter them by level.

By level:

Free graded readers in Romanian

Every story here carries its level on the Common European Framework, from A1 for beginners to C1 and beyond, so the library works as a set of free Romanian graded readers: start at the level where you understand most of a page, and move up when the English beside it is something you check only now and then.

Want a book that isn’t here? Make your own Romanian–English parallel text from any EPUB or PDF: free preview, and 50 free pages when you sign up.

Reading Romanian with English alongside

Romanian is a Romance language, a cousin of Italian, Spanish and French, so a reader who knows one of them, or the Latin words English is full of, recognises much of a Romanian page. Spelling follows pronunciation closely: once you know how ă, â, î, ș and ț sound, you can read any page aloud.

What sets it apart is the grammar: nouns carry their definite article at the end (casă, a house; casa, the house), and a small case system changes those endings again. With the English beside each paragraph, you can see what each ending is doing long before you could explain it.

Reading English books with Romanian alongside

For Romanian speakers, a parallel text makes English books quicker going: read the English and look across to the Romanian when an idiom or a phrasal verb doesn’t land.

It works for families abroad too: one book, two languages on the same page, so children growing up with English can keep reading Romanian with their parents.

English stories with Romanian alongside are in the library too.

Where a parallel text helps most in Romanian

The article at the end

Romanian attaches “the” to the end of the noun (om, a man; omul, the man). Seeing the forms beside their English again and again makes them automatic.

Cases and endings

Nouns change their endings for “of” and “to” (casei, of the house). The translation shows which relationship an ending marks, without stopping to look it up.

Familiar words, new shapes

Many words come from Latin but took their own path: biserică (church), frumos (beautiful). With the English beside them, the guessable words and the false friends sort themselves out.

Romanian classics to read in parallel

Long out of copyright and easy to find as EPUBs. Any of them makes a good first Romanian–English parallel text:

Amintiri din copilărie, Ion Creangă
Moara cu noroc, Ioan Slavici
Ion, Liviu Rebreanu
Poezii, Mihai Eminescu

Or use a book you already own: the method works best with something you actually want to read. See how to read a parallel text to get the most from it.

Questions about Romanian–English stories

Where can I read Romanian stories with English side by side for free?

Right here: 57 Romanian–English stories open in the browser with no account, the English beside every paragraph, from A1 to B2.

What is a Romanian–English parallel text?

A Romanian text placed beside its English translation, paragraph by paragraph, so you can read in one language and glance across to the other whenever you need to.

Which Romanian story should I start with?

Pick the level where you understand most of a page: the beginner stories use short sentences and common words, and the levels above them add longer sentences and richer vocabulary. Each story shows its level on the Common European Framework.

Can I read Romanian–English stories on a Kindle or Kobo?

Yes. Every story is also a bilingual ebook; downloading needs a free account, no payment.