Angela Hondru is called the "mother of Japanese-language education" in Romania for her role in saving Japanese studies from extinction in her country in the 1970s and for her more than 30 years of dedication to the field since then.

Hondru was born in Deva in western Romania in 1944 and graduated from Bucharest University. She taught English at elementary and junior high schools before serving as a Japanese-language instructor at People's University and Bucharest University of Economics.

Hondru assumed her current professorship of Japanese literature and civilization at Hyperion University in 1997.