Two Romanian letters look like ordinary s and t wearing a small tail: ș and ț. That tail is a comma, and it changes how you say the letter. Get these two right and a lot of common words fall into place, because they show up everywhere, from "thank you" to half the numbers you'll learn first. They're also among the easiest special letters to master, since the sounds themselves exist in English.
How do you say ș?
The letter ș is just "sh," the sound at the start of "shoe" or the end of "fish." Nothing tricky about the sound itself. The only job is recognizing the letter and not reading it as a plain s.
That last word, "și," meaning "and," is one of the most frequent words in the language. You'll say it constantly, so the "sh" sound becomes second nature quickly.
How do you say ț?
The letter ț is "ts," like the ending of "cats" or "pizza" said the Italian way. English doesn't usually start words with this sound, so it can feel odd at first, but it's easy once you stop treating it as a plain t.
In "mulțumesc," the most common way to say thank you, that ț is doing the "ts" work right in the middle. Listen for it and copy it.
It's a comma, not a cedilla
This is the detail that confuses people who've studied French or Turkish. The mark under ș and ț is a comma, sitting just below the letter. It is not a cedilla, the little hook used in the French ç. In good Romanian fonts you'll see a clean comma, slightly detached from the letter.
If you see what looks like ş or ţ with a hook attached, that's the cedilla version. It's technically the wrong shape for Romanian, though you'll still run into it in older software.
For pronunciation it makes no difference, the sounds are still "sh" and "ts." But if you type Romanian, it's worth setting your keyboard to produce the proper comma forms.
Putting them together
Plenty of words use both letters or pair them with the special vowels, so practicing real phrases beats drilling letters alone:
Say each one a few times, focusing on the "ts" landing cleanly at the end. A few minutes a day is enough to make these automatic.
Why the right letter is worth typing
You can read Romanian text where someone has typed plain s and t instead of ș and ț, and you'll usually figure out the words from context. Plenty of casual messages skip the diacritics entirely. But the marks do real work. In some words, swapping a plain letter for the comma version changes the meaning, and the sound is genuinely different to a native ear. If you're only reading, you'll cope. If you're writing anything that matters, like a name, an address, or a message to someone you want to impress, it's worth setting your keyboard to produce the proper letters. On most phones and computers, adding a Romanian keyboard layout takes a minute and gives you ș and ț directly.
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