Romanian is spoken primarily in Romania and Moldova, as well as in some parts of Hungary, Serbia, Bulgaria and Ukraine. It is spoken by approximately 34 million people worldwide, 30 million as their primary language.

Romanian is very similar to Italian, and, to a similiar extent, other Romance languages (French, Spanish, Portuguese, Catalan, etc.).

In Romanian, there is a formal and informal form when addressing people. The informal is tu (you, singular) or voi (you, plural) and the formal is dumneavoastră (one form for singular and plural). There is also a formal way of speaking about other people, not just when addressing them. When referring to she, use dumneaei; for he use dumnealui; and for them use dumnealor. The formal form should be used with the plural form of the verb, at the appropriate person. This is similar to the construction in most other Romance languages, and, to an extent, German, although Germans usually make less use of the informal forms. Use tu when addressing friends or people you know well. When addressing strangers or speaking about strangers, use the formal forms.

Romanian nouns are characterized by gender (feminine, masculine, and neuter), and declined by number (singular and plural) and case (nominative/accusative, dative/genitive and vocative). The articles, as well as most adjectives and pronouns, agree in gender, number and case with the noun they modify.

Romanian is the only Romance language where definite articles are enclitic: that is, attached to the end of the noun (as in Scandinavian, Bulgarian and Albanian), instead of in front (proclitic). They were formed from the Latin demonstrative pronouns.

As in all Romance languages, Romanian verbs are highly inflected for person, number, tense, mood, and voice. The usual word order in sentences is subject–verb–object (SVO).