Learn Romanian

My latest (expensive) habit is learning to speak Româneşte. As I think I've said elsewhere on this blog, I've so far found the Pimsleur Method to be the best by far ... there's just something rewarding about breaking simple words up into syllables and repeating them, and building up into full sentences. I bought the course through Audible - first lesson for free here! - and used iTunes to copy it across to my iPod (I find that a lot more accessible than listening at my PC).

My one issue is that the course starts out with verbal only, no reading component, but according to the guide notes by the time I'm at the end of my 30th lesson I'll be reading to the same level as I can speak (you're meant to have one lesson a day). With chunks of five lessons in downloadable format costing $20-$30 each, I can see that this is going to run into an expensive little exercise! In fact, it's like audio-crack, because you're not allowed to stop once you're hooked ... err, progressing well. It might be a better option to go for the full course at $173, but if you're like me you'd probably first want to check that the teaching method works for you.

This makes me think that there's a lucrative market out there for Romanians who're willing to compile their own courses and sell them. Everybody has access to a voice recorder of some sort these days. The one irony I've noticed is that the Pimsleur course I'm using is graded 'Phase 1', but there's no 'Phase 2' or 'Phase 3' on their website. I guess that's an interesting side-note, that even one of the leading programme suppliers out there hasn't really managed to get around to producing anything past the conversational level for Romanian ... yet. Budding entrepreneurs, now is your time! And when you do produce something, I'll be your guinea pig (quid pro quo for the business idea, etc etc) :)