How to type Romanian on iPhone
Romanian adds five letters to the Latin alphabet, and the default English keyboard already reaches two of them through the ordinary press-and-hold accent menu. The other three, including the letter that changes the most words, need the actual Romanian keyboard.
Romanian is written with the Latin alphabet plus five letters English does not have: ă, â, î, ș and ț. None of them sit on a visible key of the default English iPhone keyboard, which raises the same question every language with extra letters runs into — are they hiding behind a gesture already on that keyboard, or do they need a keyboard of their own? For Romanian the answer splits down the middle: two of the five are already reachable without adding anything, and three are not.
Two of the five are already a hold away
The default English keyboard opens a small popup of accented variants when you press and hold certain letters — the same gesture used to reach é or ñ. Hold the base letter, slide to the character you want, lift your finger. It happens to cover two of the five Romanian letters:
- a → â (along with à á ä æ ã å ā)
- i → î (along with ï í ī ì)
For an occasional Romanian word dropped into an English-language message, holding a for â or i for î is enough on its own.
The three that are not: ă, ș, ț
Hold a on the English keyboard for long enough to see the whole popup and â is in it, but ă is not — the letter with the breve on top never appears no matter how long the hold or which way the slide. Hold s and the popup offers ß and š, not ș. Hold t and nothing pops up at all: t does not open an accent menu on the English keyboard, so ț has no hold to find, however patiently you wait. These three are not a longer press or a different slide angle away. They are simply outside the English keyboard’s accent set.
Add the Romanian keyboard for all five
The reliable route to every one of the five, without guessing which base letter might secretly cover it, is to add the Romanian keyboard itself:
- Settings → General → Keyboard → Keyboards.
- Tap “Add New Keyboard…” and choose Romanian from the list.
- The Romanian keyboard joins your keyboard list. Switch to it with a tap or a hold on the globe key 🌐, the same gesture used to move between any two keyboards on iPhone.
A keyboard built for Romanian carries all five letters as part of its own layout instead of borrowing a general Western European accent set, so ă, ș and ț stop being a special case the moment you are typing on it.
Why â and î are not interchangeable, even though they sound the same
 and î are pronounced identically — the same central vowel, no difference a listener could catch. What splits them is not sound but position in the word: â is the one written in the middle of a word, and î is the one written at the start or the end of a word, or right after a prefix. A word like românesc keeps â because the sound falls inside the word, while a word like în keeps î because the sound opens it. Swapping one for the other does not change how the word would be said out loud, but it does spell it wrong, which is exactly the kind of mistake that is easy to make typing quickly and easy to miss reading back, since both letters look and sound like close cousins rather than obviously different choices.
What ă, ș and ț actually change
Unlike â and î, these three are not a spelling rule layered onto an existing vowel sound — each marks a sound of its own. Ă is a distinct vowel, a schwa, with no plain-letter stand-in; drop the breve and a different vowel sound is what gets left behind. Ș and ț are consonants, not decorated versions of s and t: ș is pronounced like the English “sh”, and ț like the English “ts”. A handful of Romanian words are told apart by nothing except one of these three marks, which is the same reason dropping them is more than a cosmetic shortcut — it can land on a different, real word rather than a slightly untidy version of the right one.
A quick note on the comma versus the cedilla
Ș and ț are meant to carry a small comma underneath the letter, but plenty of Romanian text written before fonts caught up still uses a cedilla instead — visually close, but a different Unicode character underneath. The Romanian keyboard on iPhone types the correct comma-below version by default, so nothing needs choosing here; it only becomes visible if you paste in older text that used the cedilla stand-in, covered in more detail in the guide on why Romanian sometimes shows a comma and sometimes a cedilla.
What happens to autocorrect
Each iOS keyboard carries its own dictionary, and switching keyboards switches the whole autocorrect and prediction stack along with the layout. Typing Romanian on the English keyboard, even reaching â and î through the hold gesture, still runs autocorrect against an English dictionary, which will keep fighting words like înțelegere or ăsta the entire way. Switching to the actual Romanian keyboard hands autocorrect and prediction a Romanian dictionary along with the extra letters — the bigger reason to add it, beyond reaching ă, ș and ț themselves.
Where Kibo fits
Romanian is one of the 30 typing languages built into Kibo, inside a single keyboard rather than a separate iOS keyboard to add and switch between. Turning it on puts all five letters, ă, â, î, ș and ț, and Romanian-aware autocorrect a tap or a hold of the globe key away, rather than the two-letter subset the English keyboard happens to expose through its hold gesture. Typing in Romanian, like any language, needs no Full Access — that switch in Kibo is read only by the Copy word, Copy line and Paste buttons on the toolbar. Kibo is free to download.
Frequently asked questions
Does holding a give me ă on iPhone?
No. Holding a opens â along with à, á, ä, æ, ã, å and ā, but ă is not part of that popup at all, regardless of how long the hold or which way the slide. The Romanian keyboard is the reliable way to reach it.
Can I type ș or ț by holding s or t on iPhone?
Not reliably. Holding s offers ß and š, not ș, and t does not open an accent popup at all on the English keyboard, so ț has nothing to find there. Adding the Romanian keyboard reaches both directly.
Are â and î the same letter?
They sound identical but are spelled differently depending on where the sound falls in the word: â is used in the middle of a word, î at the start or end of a word or right after a prefix. They are not interchangeable in spelling even though a listener could not tell them apart.
Do I need to add a separate Romanian keyboard if I use Kibo?
No. Kibo includes Romanian among its 30 typing languages inside one keyboard, so switching to it is a tap or hold on the globe key rather than a separate keyboard to add in Settings.
Try it on your own keyboard
Kibo is a free custom keyboard for iPhone with real mechanical key sounds, a wardrobe of themes and RGB backlight effects. No account, no ads, and it works with Full Access left off.