Speaker (English)
Good morning. Is the fortress within walking distance from here?
Bună dimineața. Cetatea este la distanță de mers pe jos de aici?
Hello Salut
Live translation
English ↔ Romanian
through one pair of earbuds.
Share an earbud. Pick English and Romanian. Each of you hears the other in your own language, live.
A sample exchange
Three turns between English and Romanian, the way they'd actually go. Each card shows the original line above the translation.
Speaker (Romanian)
Da, cam douăzeci de minute în sus pe deal. Vă pot arăta poteca prin orașul vechi.
Yes, about twenty minutes up the hill. I can show you the path through the old town.
Speaker (English)
That sounds lovely. Thank you for the help.
Sună minunat. Mulțumesc pentru ajutor.
What metcha supports for this pair
| English | Romanian | |
|---|---|---|
| Apple on-device translation | ✓ | — |
| Deepgram cloud STT | ✓ | ✓ |
| iOS built-in voices | ✓ | ✓ |
| ElevenLabs premium voices (Plus) | 6 voices | 2 voices |
| Voice cloning (Plus, your voice) | ✓ | ✓ |
Why metcha for this pair
Romanian is the easternmost Romance language, written in Latin script with five diacritic letters (ă, â, î, ș, ț), so English speakers can read the signs long before they can follow the speech. The pair matters most where the two communities actually overlap: Romanians are among the largest migrant groups in the UK and Ireland, and Bucharest and Transylvania draw a steady stream of English-speaking visitors. metcha keeps both sides of those conversations in their own language.
Common phrases
Hand-picked phrases for everyday Romanian-speaking situations. In metcha you don't need to memorize these — but they're useful to anchor what the app sounds like before you try it.
- Greeting
-
English: Hello, nice to meet you.
Romanian: Bună ziua, îmi pare bine de cunoștință.
- Thank you
-
English: Thank you very much.
Romanian: Mulțumesc foarte mult.
- Apology
-
English: Sorry, I don't understand.
Romanian: Îmi pare rău, nu înțeleg.
- Directions
-
English: Where is the old town?
Romanian: Unde este centrul vechi?
- Ordering
-
English: I'd like to try something local.
Romanian: Aș vrea să încerc ceva local.
- Allergy
-
English: I'm allergic to dairy.
Romanian: Sunt alergic la lactate.
- Bill
-
English: The bill, please.
Romanian: Nota de plată, vă rog.
- Hotel
-
English: I have a reservation.
Romanian: Am o rezervare.
- Pharmacy
-
English: Do you have something for a headache?
Romanian: Aveți ceva pentru dureri de cap?
- Taxi
-
English: Could you take me to this address?
Romanian: Mă puteți duce la această adresă?
Where you'd use it
- Travel in Romania, from Bucharest to Brașov and rural Transylvania
- Romanian communities in the UK and Ireland, at work and in daily life
- Meeting a partner's Romanian family for the first time
- Guesthouses in Transylvania welcoming English-speaking travelers For hotels →
Common questions
- Does metcha translate Romanian to English as well as English to Romanian?
- Yes, both directions run in the same session. When someone speaks English, the other person hears it in Romanian; when they reply in Romanian, you hear it in English. There is no direction to configure and no turn-taking button. See how it works for the full walkthrough.
- Is English ↔ Romanian translation in metcha on-device or cloud?
- Both. metcha's free tier uses Apple's on-device Translation framework where supported (partial — one side may route via the cloud path). metcha Plus optionally routes through a Better Translation cloud path for more natural phrasing, with a quiet fallback to the on-device path when the network is slow.
- Do I need both AirPods to use metcha for English and Romanian?
- No. The simplest mode is one earbud each — you keep one, the other person keeps the other. metcha handles both directions through that single shared pair. If you'd rather both wear your own earbuds, you can pair a second phone in seconds via a QR code (still no app install for the other person).
- What about regional accents within Romanian?
- metcha's Deepgram STT path handles major regional variants of Romanian robustly. The on-device path is more sensitive to accent — if you find the free path missing words, switching to the metcha Plus cloud STT usually fixes it without changing anything else about the conversation.
- Does it work without internet?
- The free on-device path works fully offline once the relevant Apple Translation language packs are downloaded. metcha Plus features that depend on Deepgram, Better Translation, or ElevenLabs voices need a network connection.
- How many voices does metcha ship for Romanian?
- 2 curated native-Romanian voices on metcha Plus, plus all iOS built-in voices on the free tier (and any Enhanced or Premium voices you've installed in Settings → Accessibility → Spoken Content).
- Are conversations private?
- metcha does not store conversations on our servers, and none of our providers retain audio for training. The free on-device path never sends audio off your phone at all. See the privacy policy for the full data-handling story.