Nearly every country has a holiday dedicated to dragoste (love) and romance. In the U.S. and other Western nations, this manifests as Valentine’s Day; in South Korea, there are twelve separate love days celebrated each year! And in Romania, there is the traditional celebration of Dragobete Day (often called Romanian Valentine’s Day).
This is a unique holiday centered on romance and the beginning of primăvară (spring). In this article, you’ll learn how this holiday got started, what celebrations look like today, and more useful Dragobete information.
1. What is Dragobete?
In Romania, February 24 marks the unofficial beginning of spring as well as the annual love celebration called Dragobete. This traditional holiday lost its popularity during the communist era, but has more recently resurfaced to be celebrated alongside Valentine’s Day. Perhaps due to the holiday’s time missing in action, no two regions within Romania celebrate it exactly the same way.
According to the Dragobete legend, there’s an old woman named Baba Dochia. She gave birth to Dragobete, who is most often depicted as being half-human and half-angel. Romanians view him as being not only the protector of love, but also a guardian of sorts to birds. These beliefs are reflected in every aspect of the holiday, from its focus on romance to its many springtime activities.
Around this time, many birds begin to build their cuib (nest) in preparation for breeding and laying eggs in the coming spring. Some people consider this symbolic of how men and women should also be ‘nesting’ and preparing to start a family. As such, this holiday is regarded as the perfect time to express romantic interest in a potential partner—especially if you were too shy to do so throughout the last year!
→ Though few things are sweeter than a springtime romance, there are plenty of ways to enjoy the season even if you’re single. Check out our list of the Top 15 Things To Do Over Spring Break. 😉
2. Dragobete Traditions and Customs
Throughout Romania, Dragobete is associated with a number of traditions, some of which vary by region.
The most common tradition is for single men and women to go into the fields together and gather springtime flowers. Afterwards, the men and women may spend time together as a group, lighting fires atop the hills and talking with each other until late in the evening. After this, each man chases one of the women back to the village; if the woman has feelings for him, she will allow the man to kiss her. Depending on the region, the people of the village consider this a type of logodnă (engagement), where the man and woman publicly express their love for each other prior to marriage.
Another Romanian Dragobete tradition is for women to use the springtime snow to wash their faces; this is thought to make them more beautiful and their skin purer. Young women also eat salty bread baked by elderly women, which is thought to make them thirsty before bed. They then place some busuioc (basil) underneath their pillow; they will then have a vis (dream) about their future soţ (husband), who brings them water to drink.
Due to the nature of this holiday, people are also advised to treat each other well and to have a sunny disposition. For partners, this might mean buying gifts for each other or spending quality time together. For those who are single, this means not complaining or being difficult.
Earlier, we mentioned that the Dragobete holiday is partially based on mythology surrounding Baba Dochia and her son Dragobete. Did you know that Bulgaria has a similar mythological character, named Baba Marta?
Like Baba Dochia, Baba Marta is associated with the coming of spring. Bulgarians celebrate their springtime festival throughout the month of March. Rather than focusing on romance, however, the Bulgarian holiday is celebrated by wearing red-and-white bracelets to keep evil away—and to keep the often-grouchy Baba Marta in a good mood!
4. Romanian Vocabulary to Know for Dragobete
Here’s the essential vocabulary you’ll need for Dragobete in Romania (or really, any time you want to impress your Romanian partner).
Pernă (Pillow) – noun, feminine
Soţ (Husband) – noun, masculine
Pasăre (Bird) – noun, feminine
Primăvară (Spring) – noun
Floare (Flower) – noun, feminine
Sărut (Kiss) – noun, neutral
Vis (Dream) – noun, neutral
Dragoste (Love) – noun, feminine
Fată (Girl) – noun, feminine
Busuioc (Basil) – noun, masculine
Stol (Flock) – noun, neutral
Cuib (Nest) – noun, neutral
Logodnă (Engagement) – noun, feminine
To hear and practice the pronunciation of each word, head over to our Lovers’ Day vocabulary list!
Final Thoughts
Dragobete Day in Romania, while similar to Valentine’s Day, certainly has its unique aspects.
Do you celebrate Valentine’s Day in your country, or another romantic holiday? What are your favorite ways to celebrate? We look forward to hearing from you!
We hope you enjoyed learning about this fun, romantic holiday with us and that you’re curious to learn more about Romanian culture!
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The Romanian language never makes it onto the lists of the world’s easiest languages.
Instead, it’s treated as a curiosity because of its rather different grammatical features compared to other languages in the same family. After all, it’s certainly rather different from Spanish and Portuguese!
As an English-speaker, you might be wondering: “Is it hard to learn Romanian?”
While aspects of the language may be difficult when you first start out, think of the possibilities that open up if you do learn it. Romania offers more adventure to some people than the more frequently visited countries in Western Europe. It’s a great destination, and since you’ll get Moldovan basically for free, learning Romanian opens a good number of doors.
Let’s dive into what might make the Romanian language hard to learn, and which things about it are actually easier than its neighboring languages. You might be surprised what you find out!
The first thing any linguistics enthusiast will tell you about Romanian is that it’s got cases—and it’s the only one of the family that still has them, since all of its closely related languages lost their cases several centuries ago.
Cases are different forms of words that reveal the grammatical role they play in the sentence. They add a bit of complexity to each word, but they allow you to free up your word order so you can place emphasis on different parts of the sentence.
Look at the phrase “the capital of America,” for instance. In English, we could also express it in another way: “America’s capital.” Here, we’re showing possession by adding an extra ending to the noun. Romanian takes this one step further by changing the noun ending as well as reversing the word order: capitala Americii.
The Romanian verb can be, and frequently is, conjugated in seventeen different tenses and moods, allowing for extremely subtle distinctions that English-speakers have to use several words to express. Some of these are only used in certain regions of Romania and Moldova, adding extra fun to the whole situation.
Compare the English “I had done” with the Romanian făcuserăm,and you’ll see what we mean here. Fortunately, it’s actually not all that bad, since the vast majority of the tenses are made with auxiliary verbs like aveți (“to have”) conjugated with the participle of the root.
In fact, the language as a whole would probably fall into the “it’s not that bad” category.
2. Romanian’s Easy Street
After all that, you’ll be glad to learn that Romanian has some easy parts, too—and depending on how you prefer to learn languages, they might outweigh the hard parts.
First, Romanian has just one new vowel and one new consonant to learn: the â and the rolled R. You’ll find all of the other sounds in English. These two sounds aren’t even that hard to make, since all they require is a shift in tongue position.
The â is made by raising your tongue ever so slightly when you say the neutral vowel in “duh.” Try to keep your tongue flat while raising it up toward the roof of your mouth, and you’ll hear your new Romanian vowel spring to life!
Rolling your R is a little tricky, but most English-speakers can tap their Rs—say “ladder.” Notice how the “dd” part isn’t a full D like in “dog”?
It’s just a tap on the roof of your mouth, which is precisely the sound made by the Romanian R most of the time. Check out another guide on Romanian pronunciation to learn how to draw out that sound into a long trill.
Second, you’ve got a big leg up on Romanian already because so many words are related to English! (You’ll have an even greater advantage if you’ve studied any Spanish, Italian, or Latin.) Lots of “formal” English words appear in Romanian as everyday vocabulary.
Learning these will also flex your pattern-matching skills. Take saluta for instance. By itself, you might not immediately know what it means (you might guess “salad,” but you’d be wrong). As soon as you learn it means “to greet,” though, you can automatically connect it to the English word “salute” and keep that connection strong for a long time.
3. Beginning Romanian – What a Learner Should Look Out For
Another factor that will determine whether you find the Romanian language easy or hard is how prepared you are for using it in the real world. Here are some things you need to watch out for and keep in mind:
Romanian spelling has undergone a couple of different reforms over the years, but nowadays, it’s very easy to read and pronounce. In the last century, the Romanian language suffered only five changes, and four of those changes were about the use of the vowels î and â. The rule for determining when to write those vowels and when not to has been pretty off-and-on. It’s such an important thing for Romanians because one of those vowels shows up in the country name: ROMÂNIA.
Although you’ll have an advantage if you know another Romance language, when it comes to speaking, you may be misled by other languages’ orthography.
In everyday, informal conversation, you’ll notice that a lot of Romanians have the tendency to cut words short or not pronounce them completely. Keep in mind that this is not acceptable when you’re having a formal conversation.
Another thing to note is something that’s totally absent in English. But think about the difference between the two N sounds in “can” and “canyon.” The “ny” letter combination in “canyon” represents a softened sound, where the tongue is placed closer to the front of the mouth.
A beginner should also be careful not to learn too much Romanian from the Internet! It turns out that, unlike French or German, even published articles online in Romanian often come without diacritics, so you don’t know if the “a” you’re seeing is really an ă or an â in disguise. A native Romanian will understand the meaning of the words without diacritics (sometimes from the context, sometimes just guessing), but keep in mind that this is an incorrect way to write (and publish) an article. For that reason, definitely focus on listening. Otherwise, you’ll end up with a heavy accent and it will take a long time to train yourself away from it.
Also, although there are a lot of cognates and connections you can use to make vocabulary learning easier, watch out for the false friends. Plenty of words weren’t borrowed from English; they were borrowed from French or developed separately from Latin, meaning that their definitions won’t match up exactly with English’s.
A gimnaziu in Romanian isn’t a place to work out, it’s a middle school. Also, don’t say that you’re mizerabil if you’re down in the dumps, because that means “dirty” instead! As you can see, it’s much better to know the real definitions for new words than it is to just guess.
4. How RomanianPod101 Can Make the Language Even Easier
RomanianPod101 is exactly the kind of course you need when you’re stuck without a strong pathway to proficiency.
Assuming you’re following the podcast levels as recommended, you’ll start off with the Absolute Beginner series and slowly work your way up to Advanced.
As you run into difficult concepts along the way, you can look around the website for related articles or supplementary vocab exercises. So let’s say you’re really focused on developing a perfect Romanian accent—you can read through a blog article, then watch a video with clear and accurate pronunciation to get the correct accent in your head.
And let’s not forget the vocabulary lists, either. Each of our vocabulary resources has example sentences so that you can see the context for each word as it comes up. You don’t need to worry about memorizing every word in every sentence, but you should make an effort to link each word to its English meaning.
5. The Quick Foundation to Good Romanian
Here’s a nice study routine you can follow:
Attack the difficult grammar memorization from the beginning. Work on memorizing—yes, memorizing—all of the different Romanian verb paradigms. Start with the most common irregular verbs first. Once those are out of the way, you’ll notice how easy it is to pick up the regular verb paradigms.
Don’t put time pressure on yourself, though. Expect that it’ll be hard at first, but that you’ll slowly get reinforcement from your studies and it’ll seem more and more natural. For example, you’ll see a sentence combination like this:
Am jucat cărți noaptea trecută. “I played cards last night.”
That combination of am jucat might seem really tough to memorize at first in a big chart, but soon it will be second nature to think of it as the past tense of a juca (“to play”). Then you’ll be able to consult your mental model of the conjugation chart and be completely certain.
You’ll want to do this from the beginning, because you want it to be absolutely automatic later on. And do you know what else this applies to? Pronunciation!
Although Romanian pronunciation isn’t that challenging, it’s important to start with it early on or else risk misunderstandings and even stigma from a bad accent later on. (Don’t worry if you’ve been learning for a while; any accent can be corrected!)
The best way to learn Romanian is to start and never stop. When they need to accomplish something difficult, Romanians will encourage themselves by saying: “Repetition is the mother of learning.” And this can apply to the Romanian language itself!
Any obstacle that seems to come up when learning a language is never that big of a deal; you can always just put on the brakes for a bit and try learning something else. There’s always more to read, more to watch, and more to hear.
That’s what RomanianPod101 is for, anyway. With one subscription, you can get access to a massive library of texts, audio recordings, and videos that you can learn from anytime, anywhere.
So don’t let anybody tell you that Romanian is too hard to learn. It’s a solid challenge for the right learner with good motivation and good resources—and that sounds like you.
If you’ve already started learning Romanian, which parts are most difficult for you? And which parts do you find the easiest? Let us, and aspiring Romanian-learners, know in the comments!
On the flip side, though, you do have to pay attention to some rules in order to avoid the most common mistakes Romanian-learners make.
Trying to come up with Romanian—written or spoken—without being aware of the rules of the language is a surefire way to ingrain bad habits and make your communication with natives less effective.
In this article, you’ll see an overview of the classic learner mistakes in Romanian, as well as what you can do to stay far away from them.
Romanian is not that bad of a language to pronounce. Even someone who confused the language for “Roman” would probably be able to read off a couple of words if they had to.
However, if you don’t pay attention to a couple of key things, your foreign accent is always going to shine through.
1- Vowels
The most important thing to think about is the vowels.
The first additional vowel is also in English, written as the “uh” in “duh.” That’s the sound represented by the letter ă. Be careful that you don’t pronounce this sound anywhere else! English-speakers have a habit of not stressing vowels in words and reducing the vowel sound to this same ă. But in Romanian, the vowels stay pure.
The second vowel to watch for is, strangely enough, represented by two different letters: î and â. It’s notoriously one of the trickiest sounds in Romanian for foreigners. Because â and î sound the same, sometimes even native speakers make mistakes when writing words that contain those vowels.
Basically, you want to make the ă sound and then move your tongue vertically so that it’s still flat, but nearly touching the roof of your mouth. It definitely takes some practice to say it smoothly in the middle of words, but pulling that off goes a long way toward getting your Romanian pronunciation up to par!
2- Consonants
Next is the consonants.
Romanian doesn’t have particularly difficult consonants, either. Just remember that you should roll your R.
3- Aspiration
One thing that sometimes escapes English-speakers is that Romanian never aspirates its letters.
When English words begin with the sounds “p,” “t,” or “k,” English-speakers release a small puff of air, without even thinking about it. In Romanian, that sounds odd, almost like the speaker is out of breath.
Pay attention to this and try softening the “p,” “t,” and “k” sounds at the beginning of Romanian words. Soon, your pronunciation will be indistinguishable from that of a native speaker!
2. Confusing Words
Romanian happens to be one of those languages without a ton of near-homophones, or confusing tongue-twisters that are almost the same but still have different meanings.
That said, there are a couple of words that even native speakers end up using wrong from time to time. The first is kind of funny to learners:
ceai “tea”
Ce-ai? “What do you have?”
This is a mistake that most learners don’t make because they learn to read Romanian at roughly the same pace that they learn to understand it. But native speakers have years of only listening before they learn to read, and that’s how you end up with people unable to remember which one gets the hyphen!
odată “once”
o dată “one time”
Well, that’s a lot more difficult-looking! The secret is in the words around these terms, or the contexts in which they tend to appear.
O dată is used to mean “one time,” when you’re counting specific instances of events occurring, and contrasting with “twice.” Odată appears in set phrases like A fost odată… (“Once upon a time…”), and it has the meaning of “at some point” or “a moment in time.”
Romanian also has no shortage of false friends with English and other European languages. Cămin in Romanian refers to a school dormitory, while kamin in Russian means “fireplace.”
Comercial in Romanian isn’t an English advertisement; instead, it only means “related to business.” And much like French, smoking in Romanian is a noun meaning “tuxedo” in English!
First off, in Romanian, the adjective tends to go after the noun, except in certain cases for emphasis. This is something that really has to be learned slowly through lots of exposure—it won’t be a mistake if you switch the order all the time, but it will certainly sound strange to Romanian ears.
Second, Romanian questions don’t usually invert the word order like questions in English or French do. Questions are made like they are in Spanish, with just a change in intonation signifying the difference between a question and a statement.
Another interesting thing about Romanian words is specifically related to talking about your age. For numbers above nineteen, you have to include de when saying the number:
Am 23 de ani.
“I am 23 years old.”
However, for ages under twenty, you omit the de.
Ai 15 ani.
“You are fifteen.”
You might think that you don’t have to pay attention to this if you’re over twenty, but watch out for it when talking about other people—or indeed, when you’re describing things that happened in the past!
4. Hit the Grammar Books
As fun as it may be to speak Romanian, there are a lot of different grammar complexities to get stuck in.
Chief among these is probably the verb system, the source of many a mistake in Romanian. Romanian has one of the most complicated verb paradigms of all the Indo-European languages!
Most learners are able to handle the basics of conjugation reliably enough, but then they start looking like a deer in the headlights when asked to handle the rarer tenses.
For instance, ar face is the conjugation for “he/she would do,” while o face is for “he/she might do.” How easily can you keep them straight?
A super-effective way to practice these is with cloze tests, where you take a paragraph of text and blank out the verb endings and try to figure out what they should be. Native speakers can usually do extremely well on these (barring some arbitrary cases) because they have a whole lifetime of language context to draw from.
5. Miscellaneous Errors
There are two final things to cover in this article that don’t really fit anywhere else. These mistakes in Romanian can make a big difference in how you, as a learner, are perceived when you speak or write Romanian.
First is the politeness aspect. Other European languages have formal and informal pronouns as well, but English doesn’t. For that reason, it’s always a little bit tough to get used to.
Another thing that’s pretty unique about Romanian is how it’s written online—people leave out the accents all the time. If you look at writing in German or Swedish online, people always spell the words correctly with the umlauts and accent marks.
It kind of makes sense if you think about it. Everyone’s expected to understand, because native Romanian-speakers know the language perfectly in their heads and so they won’t ever get confused. Learners, though, have to deal with an extra step.
Either avoid online writing completely until you’re quite comfortable with Romanian and know exactly where the words should go, or check with a native speaker or dictionary to make sure you don’t learn the wrong form of each word!
6. The Biggest Mistake in Romanian Learning
It might give you pause when you first arrive in Cluj or Bucharest and hear the locals speaking to you in what sounds like absolutely flawless English. Romanian-speakers grow up watching American TV and listening to American pop music, and they tend to speak English quite confidently.
That can be really demotivating as a learner who’s just ready to start having conversations! You might feel like you shouldn’t even try your Romanian.
You’ll not only have a stressful time in Romania holding yourself to a really high standard, but you’ll also associate Romanian itself with that stress and keep worrying too much to push yourself out of your comfort zone.
7. Conclusion
Remember how the locals learned really good English? They kept at it for years and years growing up, naturally gravitating toward English-language media for their own entertainment. As an English-speaker, you’re actually a bit spoiled in a way, since the hottest TV and music is in English anyway!
Fortunately, RomanianPod101 offers a wonderful selection of podcasts in Romanian, from beginner to advanced levels. And that’s not even mentioning the vocabulary lists, pronunciation guides, video lessons, and flashcards!
Now that you’re aware of some of the pitfalls that can trip you up in Romanian, you just need to keep an eye out as you fill your hours with Romanian media. Before long, you’ll look back and wonder what you were ever worrying about!
What common Romanian mistakes do you struggle with the most? We look forward to hearing from you!
You see, people tend to have the same conversations with language-learners over and over. You introduce yourself, say where you’re from, and then probably ask why they’re learning that particular language.
If you want to get yourself speaking automatically in conversations, then you should take a look at the most common Romanian questions and answers. You’ll impress your conversation partner, and with that comes great motivation to keep pushing yourself to learn more.
When you start introducing yourself in Romanian, you’ll want to know your interlocutor’s name!
Care este numele tău? “What’s your name?”
Cum te cheamă? “What’s your name?”
Right off the bat, we have two separate yet equivalent ways to ask someone for their name in Romanian. The first is pretty literal, translating nearly word-for-word into English. The only difference is that the word order for numele tău is switched, as is typical with Romanian possessive pronouns.
The second is similar to French, Spanish, and Italian: “What do you call yourself?”
To round it off, we can actually respond in a different way entirely.
Mă numesc Rosa. “My name is Rosa.”
2. The Place You Call Home
Although it’s a beautiful place, Romania isn’t nearly as much of a tourist destination as some of its neighboring countries, and Moldova is even less so. Therefore, people will definitely want to know where you’re from. This is one of those typical questions in Romanian that a foreigner can expect to hear a lot.
De unde ești? “Where are you from?”
This is a classic Romance language construction. Unde means “where,” and so de unde means “from where?” Look what happens to the preposition here:
Sunt din Albania. “I’m from Albania.”
In addition, you can give your nationality instead of saying where you’re from. In that case, remember that if you’re writing in Romanian, you shouldn’t capitalize nationality names.
Știi să vorbești românește? “Do you know how to speak Romanian?”
Of course, you can swap out românește for any other language.
The answer depends on your comfort level with that particular language. Here are answers you might get if you flip the script and start asking people about their English ability:
Nu pot vorbi bine engleză. “I can’t speak English well.”
Da, desigur. “Yes, of course.”
4. Following Up About Romanian
Whether you’re tripping over your words or speaking elegant prose, the idea that a foreigner would invest a serious amount of time into studying the Romanian language is rather baffling to most people, to put it frankly.
As soon as you mention that you’re a learner, you’re bound to get this follow-up:
De cât timp studiați limba română? “How long have you been studying Romanian?”
You’ll note that the preposition de, meaning “since” or “from,” was also used in an earlier question to refer to physical space. Now, we’re literally saying “from which time?”
Interestingly enough, we don’t need to say “since” or “for” in our answers to this question. Just the amount of time is enough.
Am studiat limba română doi ani. “I’ve studied Romanian for two years.”
Am început să studiez anul acesta. “I started studying this year.”
5. The Burning Question for Romanian-Learners
We’ve established the fact that you’re learning and how long you’ve been learning, but the question that most people are holding back the entire time is “Why?” Statistically speaking, you probably don’t have to be learning Romanian.
And so not many people do—which makes you special.
De ce înveți limba română? “Why are you learning Romanian?”
Now, this is a question that can get you started on all kinds of tangents. Here are a couple of sentences to get you started:
Pentru că țara este frumoasă. “Because the country is beautiful.”
Pentru că limba română sună frumos. “Because the Romanian language sounds beautiful.”
Soțul meu este român. “My husband is Romanian.”
This particular question is practically guaranteed to come up, so one excellent study strategy would be to map out different responses that you could possibly have. When you do get asked, you can easily toss out a phrase and make a grand impression.
6. A Question for the Future Traveler
So, we’ve gone over questions that you’re likely to be asked in Romania or Moldova. How about outside of those places?
Interestingly enough, if you start up a conversation with a Romanian speaker outside of their home country, they’ll probably be significantly more talkative and curious about you. After all, they’re certainly not expecting you to speak their language! You should be prepared for Romanian questions like this one:
Ai fost în România? “Have you been to Romania?”
Note that we don’t say “to Romania,” but instead “in Romania.” This is the same structure you would use in German.
Nu încă! “Not yet!”
Vreau să merg anul viitor. “I want to go next year.”
It’s likely that you’ll stay in a small bed-and-breakfast if you end up outside one of the main cities. In that case, your host will almost certainly interrogate you about your opinions on Romanian cooking.
Îți place mâncarea românească? “Do you like Romanian food?”
If the answer is yes, it’s wise, of course, to name something typically Romanian.
Da, îmi place mămăliga. “Yes, I love polenta.”
But if you’re panicking and nothing comes to mind:
Totul este delicios! “Everything is delicious!”
8. Do This, Not That
People learning Romanian by themselves are, no doubt, used to the effort required in finding good things to watch online.
One of the benefits of watching Romanian TV or videos online is that you’ll get exposed to the most common questions and answers over and over and over. Plus, you’ll get to see the body language and hear the responses that go along with it. It just so happens that a lot of these are questions that you can use with Romanian friends!
Ce faci? “What are you doing?”
Nu fac nimic. “I’m not doing anything.”
In this example, you can see the classic double negation that’s present in Romanian. Literally, you’re saying “I’m not doing nothing.” There’s no sense of it “canceling out” like it would in English; instead, it’s just a regular old negative.
Ești ocupat? “Are you busy?”
Nu, doar citesc. “No, I’m just reading.”
9. Life Back Home
As you get to know Romanians more and more, your small talk will become a little more personal.
In Romanian culture, family and familial ties tend to take on a little bit more importance than they do in American or English culture. Therefore, it’s pretty commonplace to ask about how someone’s family is doing.
Ce mai face familia ta? “How is your family?”
That ce mai face part can’t really be translated literally, but you can interpret it as a set phrase meaning “how is someone.” Note too, of course, that “your family” has a reversed word order in Romanian, becoming familia ta.
Here are a couple of examples of responses you might offer:
Sora mea se căsătorește. “My sister is getting married.”
Toată lumea este sănătoasă! “Everyone is healthy!”
10. The Price is Right
Although Romania isn’t really a place where you bargain for prices, knowing how to ask for the price is a valuable skill wherever you go. If you’re into hitchhiking (like many Romanians are), then that would be a perfect time to ask about money.
Cât costă aceasta? “How much is it?”
The word cât simply means “how many,” and costă is an easy cognate for “to cost” in English. You can expect the answer to be given in one of two ways. One way is with a full sentence using the verb a fi, meaning “to be,” or a costa. The other wayis for the person to just give the number itself.
Este două sute de lei. “It’s two hundred lei.”
Remember that for numbers over twenty, the rules change ever so slightly: you have to add de! But to get around that, just say the number without saying what it is.
Șaptezeci. “Seventy.”
11. Conclusion
Now that you’re familiar with a solid handful of Romanian questions and answers, why not look for more on your own?
Those little mini-conversations can be the perfect framework to help you get comfortable with Romanian interactions, and you’ll soon be following the native-speaker content like it’s nothing.
Or better yet, why comb through YouTube comments at all? By signing up for RomanianPod101, you can get access to podcasts with transcripts (itself a rarity in Romanian learning), vocabulary lists, and grammar resources all in one place, carefully selected and graded for your convenience.
These questions are really just the tip of the iceberg for your Romanian conversation preparation. Sign up with RomanianPod101 today and unleash your potential!
Before you go, practice right away by trying to answer one or more of the questions from this article in Romanian! We look forward to hearing from you.
The language took some time to learn, of course, and there were ups and downs along the way.
But now you speak Romanian quite well. You read the latest news in Romanian, you have a hilarious Romanian group chat going, and you know more Romanian bands than the locals do.
And as luck would have it, one day you hear about a job that you’d love to do—right in your favorite Romanian city.
The only catch? The hiring manager won’t even look at your application if you don’t have some kind of Romanian language certificate.
Now, this scenario is a little bit contrived. But getting a job or residency is one of the main reasons you might want to take a Romanian language exam—and this article is going to show you how to do it.
As it turns out, the Romanian language exam for residency permits is a quick test conducted at the immigration office, and some officers may not even administer it.
However, there’s a reasonable number of smaller Romanian proficiency tests that you can try your hand at, and since they come from reputable institutions, they’ll be recognized wherever you need them.
And besides, perhaps you don’t even want to use your Romanian skills in the country of Romania itself. Big cities in the United States sometimes have hundreds of thousands of Romanian-Americans, and since a change in the law in 2014, the number of Romanians in the United Kingdom has more than doubled.
Having a Romanian qualification on your resume can help significantly if you’d like a job at a Romanian-owned business abroad, or a job in the public sector working with Romanians (think court interpreter or social worker).
Let’s have a look at the different Romanian language exams available to you!
2. At a Romanian University
They’re not shy about multilingualism at Romanian universities, that’s for certain. You can study degree programs in English, French, German, Hungarian, and of course, Romanian.
If you want to get a degree in a subject only offered in Romanian—more than half of the degree programs offered at the Bachelor’s level at the biggest universities are in Romanian—you’d better prove your worth with a language exam.
Lucky for you, both the University of Bucharest and Babeș-Boylai University offer Romanian courses and certificates for you to use later on in your academic career.
If Cluj is your style, you can head there a year early and take what they call a “Romanian Preparatory Year,” where you take two semesters’ worth of courses to get to the B2 level.
They’ve devised their own test, which is totally free to take. The test is split into two sections: a written part and an oral test. The written part is considered the most difficult one because it has four sub-sections: listening, reading, communication constructions, and, of course, writing. Since there isn’t a flood of people taking this exam, they can afford to interview you one-on-one for the oral section. The maximum number of points you can get for this exam is 100.
In addition to what you’d expect in terms of reading, writing, listening, and grammar, you’ll also be asked to describe pictures and summarize what you see.
In less than a week, you can find your test results and celebrate your accomplishments with your Romanian friends.
The best way to practice for this is to try watching Romanian documentaries—or failing that, reading Romanian subtitles on English documentaries with the sound turned off!
Of course, the University of Bucharest offers its own program along similar lines if you prefer capital-city life. Its program crams an intensive language course into the first semester, then focuses more on culture before making you sit an exam.
That means if you have a language certificate from the University of Bucharest, you’ll definitely be prepared to discuss Romanian culture!
3. The Romanian OPI Test
The ACTFL is an American organization of foreign language educators, and they’ve devised an exam designed entirely for measuring proficiency in Romanian speaking. It’s called the OPI, or Oral Proficiency Interview.
Its approach is unique, as you simply sign up for a specific time and date, dial the number of the assigned examiner, and have a conversation lasting between 15 and 30 minutes.
The examiner is trained to ask you questions and introduce you to scenarios that slowly stretch your language ability, becoming more and more difficult as the test goes on and you continue to do well.
You’re rated at the end based on the ACTFL scale, a ten-level scale from “Novice Low” to “Superior.”
And don’t think that you’ll score at the top end of the scale just because you know how to order a couple of beers. This is the same exam used by the diplomatic branches of the United States when it sends ambassadors and interpreters abroad.
One classic strategy for the OPI is to prepare a consistent list of hobbies, interests, and experiences that you can talk about when pressed.
The examiner doesn’t know you, and they’re not working off of a curriculum of set questions every year.
Instead, they’ll use what you give them to increase the difficulty of the questions. For example, they may ask you to give more detailed descriptions of your hobbies, and perhaps analyze them critically and make guesses about what other people tend to do compared to you.
4. The FIDES Exam
FIDES is one of the oldest private foreign language schools in Romania, offering language classes to foreigners and locals alike. Similar to the universities mentioned above, they first offer a language course to get you familiar with Romanian, and then a language exam at the end that you can use as a certificate.
Since they’re a language school, their main product is the courses, which can be taught in English, French, German, or Romanian, and taken as a group or individually.
The maximum course level offered is a B2.2, or a very high intermediate level. However, if you happen to speak very good Romanian already, they’ll be willing to arrange language courses and an exam at the C1 or C2 levels. If you pass the B2.2 test, you’ll get the “FIDES Language Proficiency Certificate,” which can help you qualify for a scholarship at a Romanian university.
5. The ILR Exam
The ILR is the Institutul Limbii Române, an arm of the Romanian Ministry of Education in Bucharest.
They conduct the only nationally standardized Romanian exam, though it’s only offered twice a year in Bucharest at the headquarters of the Ministry.
They also have partnerships with the Universities of Alicante, Granada, and Seville in Spain, but the tests are only held if ten or more people register.
Out of all the tests mentioned so far in this article, only this one actually publishes sample materials for each of its levels! Even if you plan on taking an exam from a different place, it would do you good to look over the sample exams and get familiar with some typical question formats and topics on a formal Romanian exam.
The oral section here is of note: You will be required to listen to a lecture or text and then discuss the issues raised with your examiner.
If you want to practice this, one of the best ways would be to find a tutor and grab a newspaper or magazine. Have them read a short article aloud, and then, without referring back to the article, have a brief conversation or debate about the topic.
6. Don’t Lose Time in Preparing for Your Exam
Since these Romanian language proficiency exams are all oriented toward small populations, there are no published test prep books or mock exams that you can buy without taking one of the courses mentioned.
However, don’t be discouraged. If you’ve got a lot riding on your exam, put yourself in contact with the test center and ask if they can specifically recommend any materials or if they have advice for you.
And besides, there are skills you can practice that will help you with any kind of language exam.
First, you should have a wide vocabulary. Once you reach a certain level of understanding, it’s easy to let your vocabulary study slide in favor of just more reading or listening practice.
However, at the intermediate or advanced level, the most important words that you might miss on the exam are the ones you might think you know, but actually don’t have a full grasp of. Do you know the difference between agoniseală (“personal income,” “fortune”) and câştig (“business income”)?
One of the most important exercises you can do for your Romanian speaking is summarization. Simply read an article in any language and then try to summarize it in Romanian—first in just one sentence, then in a few sentences, gradually adding more detail to increase the challenge.
There’s always a different way to present any piece of information, meaning that as you continue consuming Romanian content, you’ll naturally get practice describing and reformulating your ideas in tons of different ways.
7. Conclusion
By now, you should feel much more confident in your ability to ace that exam! Did we answer your Romanian language proficiency test questions, or do you still need clarification on something? We look forward to hearing from you in the comments.
Let’s take a moment to imagine how you might use RomanianPod101.com to prepare for that exam.
With a handful of clicks, you’ve got immediate access to tons of real-life native audio with transcriptions and vocab lists.
And when you’re tired of actively studying, you can keep the hours and hours of podcasts playing in the background, meaning that whenever your mind wanders you get another good dose of Romanian listening to keep you on track.
With hundreds of lessons available right now and more on the way, you’ll be sure to be prepared for any topic on any exam paper that comes your way! Noroc!
Have you ever seen shapes in the clouds, or noticed “faces” in electrical sockets? That’s your subconscious pattern-matching system working around the clock.
That said, if you went and looked at some text in, say, Waray-Waray (a language of the Philippines), you’d probably give up trying to understand it after a short while. In Romanian, though, you start noticing patterns. For example, you may see words that look an awful lot like words in English (or other European languages you might be familiar with).
That effect becomes ten times more powerful when you can compare each Romanian sentence structure and pattern to an English translation. You start to quickly see where the languages match up, and also where they differ. Just fifty sentences in Romanian with English translations are enough to teach you the basics of Romanian syntax patterns.
And then all you’ve got to do is learn a little more vocab. Then you come back to these patterns, or any other, and start using your new vocabulary in these familiar molds to create beautiful, correct, and idiomatic Romanian every time. Let’s get started!
Romanian is unique among Romance languages when it comes to the humble verb a fi (“to be”).
While in Spanish, people wrestle with two verbs meaning “to be a thing” and “to be a state,” Romanian learners don’t have to deal with that at all. But there are still two verbs (kind of)!
The word este is the third person singular of a fi (equivalent to “he/she/it is”), but you can also shorten it to e if you wish. This is relatively informal and used quite often in ordinary spoken Romanian.
Let’s see how it works in these Romanian sentence examples!
Sunt profesor. “I am a teacher.”
David e doctorul meu. “David is my doctor.”
Aceasta este noua mea cameră. “This is my new camera.”
Fericirea este relativă. “Happiness is relative.”
Noul nostru președinte a fost cântăreț. “Our new president was a singer.”
Like German, the commonly used Romanian past tense form is a compound that maps closer to “has been” than “was,” at least in form. In function, though, it’s definitely still the preterite!
2. Adding an Adjective
In Romanian, we can use the same este and e to describe things in terms of what adjectives they are or aren’t. Romanian adjectives agree with nouns in number and gender, so when you have a plural noun, your adjective becomes plural as well. Don’t worry about that now—you’ll pick it up fast, and today you should just be looking at the word order of these basic Romanian sentences.
Mașina dumneavoastră este roșie. “Your car is red.”
Puloverele mele sunt mici. “My sweaters are tiny.”
Ultimul său album a fost cu adevărat uimitor. “Her last album was really amazing.”
Exercițiul zilnic este un obicei bun. “Daily exercise is a good habit.”
Note in that last sentence that obicei bun is using the typical Romanian adjective order of noun+adjective. Although it’s a masculine noun and you can’t tell, the adjective is agreeing in number and gender here as well.
3. I Want it All
You’re definitely going to need this sentence pattern when you travel to Romania. The verb a vrea is the same as a dori, and they both mean “want.” Let’s see some examples of how each one is used in a Romanian sentence.
Vreau apă. “I want water.”
Ei vor taxe mai mari. “They want higher taxes.”
Generally, you might use a dori in more formal situations or when you want to speak more politely.
Dorim o masă lângă fereastră. “We want a table near the window.”
Aș dori să plec chiar acum. “I would like to leave right now.”
Vreau tot ce nu pot avea. “I want everything that I can’t have.”
4. Everything You Need
Again, there are two identical forms of the same basic verb in Romanian, both commonly used. Can you figure out which one is literally the equivalent of “I have need of” and which one is “I need?”
Trebuie să beau ceva. “I need a drink.”
Trebuie să te calmezi. “You need to calm down.”
Chiar trebuie să merg la culcare devreme. “I really need to go to sleep early.”
Nu avem nevoie de banii tăi. “We don’t need your money.”
Această țară are nevoie de cineva care să ne poată conduce. “This country needs someone who can lead us.”
5. Lightning Round: Questions
Let’s do a real quick review of the vocabulary we’ve seen in these sentences so far, and at the same time practice making questions in Romanian. In essence, you just swap the subject and verb—but you can also keep them in the same order and use a question intonation, similar to what you would do in English.
Aveți nevoie de bani? “Do you need money?”
By the way, this one is the “have need of” form. Did you get it right?
Ce vrei? “What do you want?”
Mașina ta este roșie? “Is your car red?”
Ești scriitor? “Are you a writer?”
Ce culoare are mașina ta? “What color is your car?”
6. Polite Requests
“Please” in Romanian is vă rog or te rog (formal and informal respectively), but just like in English, we can use different forms of verbs to show politeness. After all, that’s exactly what we always do with “can” and “could.”
Vă rugăm să vă îndepărtați de mașină. “Please step away from the car.”
Vrei să-mi răspunzi? “Would you please answer me?”
Ai putea să-mi mai dai o șansă? “Could you give me another chance?”
Poți să-mi aduci telefonul? “Could you bring me my phone?”
Vrei să mă duci la aeroport mâine? “Would you drive me to the airport tomorrow?”
7. Skip Forgiveness, Ask for Permission
You’re about to see the little word să pop up all over the place. Here, it’s part of the set phrase pot să? (“may I?”). It’s very useful, and definitely the kind of thing you can apply to all sorts of casual and formal situations! Let’s see how it looks in a few Romanian language sentences:
Pot să intru? “May I come in?”
Pot să iau asta? “May I have this?”
Pot să te sărut? “May I kiss you?”
Pot să vin mâine târziu la serviciu? “Can I come late to work tomorrow?”
Pot să preiau contul? “Can I take over the account?”
8. Find Out About the World
When you’re traveling in Romania, you’ll gain a lot of favor if you can manage to be open and genuinely curious about the world. Whether they speak good English or not, people are likely to appreciate your efforts to speak Romanian, so why not do it all the time with questions like these?
Ce este asta? “What is this?”
Care este numele dumneavoastră? “What is your name?”
La ce restaurant am fost săptămâna trecută? “Which restaurant did we go to last week?”
Vom ajunge la ora șapte. “We’ll arrive at seven o’clock.”
Trebuia să plec la ora patru. “I was supposed to leave at four o’clock.”
Te rog să mă trezești la ora opt. “Please wake me up at eight o’clock.”
10. Locations and Positions
Like other European languages, Romanian has a complete array of prepositions. You can clearly see here the cognate în, perhaps the easiest of all to remember. Here are some Romanian phrases and sentences:
Mașina mea se află în fața casei mele. “My car is in front of my house.”
Cheile tale sunt în poșetă. “Your keys are in your purse.”
Casele noastre se află pe același drum. “Our houses are on the same road.”
Did you notice how the phrase se află showed up in this sentence (and the first one in the section)? Using that, you can make a guess that the meaning is something like “to stand” or “to be located,” much like how we’d use those words in English to describe big things like buildings or cars.
El nu a reușit să treacă peste râu. “He couldn’t get over the river.”
Câte stele sunt deasupra noastră? “How many stars are above us?”
11. Conclusion
In this article, you’ve seen several dozen sentences and quite a few general sentence patterns.
But go back and look more carefully (perhaps after a couple of days to get the memories to sink in faster), and you’ll probably be able to notice some patterns that we didn’t even mention specifically.
Building that kind of focus and curious mindset is a huge advantage when it comes to learning Romanian or any other language.
Each vocabulary lesson has an example sentence with its English translation; this way, you can not only see the Romanian word in context, but also start picking up on more and more Romanian sentence patterns.
That’s not even mentioning the goldmine of audio and video resources, all in one place! Try it out today and see how fast you can pick up the beautiful Romanian language!
Before you go, let us know in the comments how many of these sentence patterns are new to you. Did we answer all of your Romanian sentence pattern questions? We look forward to hearing from you!
There’s always a danger, though, that that person happens to have Romanian grandparents or experience living in a Romanian-speaking environment through an internship or similar. If you want to impress, you need to bring your A-game. And that means using the correct and accurate adverb in Romanian for whatever you need to describe, providing flavor in just the right place.
Some of the most common adverbs in any language are those that answer the question “how much” or “to what degree?” These should be the first adverbs you set out to learn.
1- foarte – very
Voi fi foarte bun.
I’ll be very good.
2- destul – quite
Desertul arată destul de bine.
The desert looks quite good.
3- extrem – extremely
Ea a vorbit extrem de repede.
She spoke extremely quickly.
4- prea – too
Nimic nu este prea complicat.
Nothing is too complicated.
5- un pic – a bit
Mă simt un pic pierdut.
I’m feeling a bit lost.
6- puțin – a little
Prima probă a fost puțin rapidă.
The first try was a little faster.
7- suficient de – enough
Ea a fost suficient de inteligentă pentru a înțelege asta.
She was smart enough to know that.
8- prea – too
Sunt prea impulsiv.
I’m too impulsive.
9- evident – obviously
Este evident că ea este necăsătorită.
She’s obviously not married.
10- încă – more
Ei au nevoie de încă un milion de dolari.
They need another million dollars.
11- mai puțin- Less
Trebuie să îi plătești mai puțin.
You must pay them less.
12- abia – barely
Abia îmi amintesc.
I barely remember.
13- exact – exactly
Știu exact ce anume am cerut.
I know exactly what I was asking.
14- aproximativ – approximately
Vei avea nevoie de aproximativ 100 de ore ca să finalizezi acest proiect.
It will take you approximately 100 hours to finish this project.
2. Telling The Truth and Making Predictions
These five “truth” adverbs are quite necessary for when you want to qualify a certain statement. They’re also commonly seen as filler words when speaking casually or distractedly.
1- realmente – actually
El a fost realmente o persoană foarte cumsecade.
He was really a decent person.
2- poate – maybe
Poate mâine sau poate săptămâna viitoare el va tunde iarba.
He will be mowing the lawn maybe tomorrow or maybe next week.
3- posibil – possibly
Este posibil să mă ajuți?
Can you possibly help me?
4- probabil – likely
Probabil mașina lui a fost lovită din spate.
His car was likely struck from behind.
5- cu siguranță – definitely
El este cu siguranță confuz și supărat din cauza glumei tale.
He’s definitely confused and upset because of your joke.
6- oare – perhaps
Este posibil oare, să vin cu propriul meu laptop?
Could I perhaps bring my own laptop?
3. Adverbs of Location
It doesn’t matter where your Romanian class is – with RomanianPod101, you can learn anywhere you like! Describing where you study is an excellent test of your Romanian adverb skills.
1- aici – here
Trusa de prim ajutor se află aici.
The first aid kit is located here.
2- acolo – there
Când merg acolo am impresia că este o povară.
When I go there I feel like a burden.
3- pretutindeni – everywhere
Bacteriile se găsesc pretutindeni.
Bacteria are everywhere.
4- aproape – nearby
Ea stă aproape.
She lives nearby.
5- departe – away
Trebuie să stai departe de noi doi.
You need to stay away from both of us.
6- lângă – next to, close by
Locuiesc lângă stația de metrou.
I live near the metro station.
7- oriunde – anywhere
Ești calificat oriunde în lume.
You are qualified anywhere in the world.
8- nicăieri – nowhere
Nu plec nicăieri.
I’m not going nowhere.
9- direct – straight
Te rog să mergi direct la tine acasă.
Please go straight to your house.
10- înapoi – back
Toate cadourile au fost trimise înapoi.
All the gifts were sent back.
11- exact – right
Poți să parchezi exact aici.
You can park right here.
4. Adverbs and Languages
In Romanian, the suffix -ește is a clear marker of language names, as you can see here. This is because when we say “speak a language,” the underlying meaning is “speak in a certain way.” That’s what adverbs are for!
1- grecește – Greek
Învăț grecește de la bunicul meu.
I am learning Greek from my grandfather.
2- englezește – English
La job vorbim numai englezește.
At work we speak only English.
3- românește – Romanian
Încearcă să vorbească românește cu vecinii săi.
He’s trying to speak Romanian with his neighbors.
4- arabește – Arabic
Ei nu știu că eu vorbesc arăbește.
They do not know I speak Arabic.
5- nemțește – German
Doi dintre ei au început să vorbească în nemțește.
Two of them started talking in German.
6- franțuzește – French
Tot cursul a fost în franțuzește.
All the class was in French.
7- chinezește – Chinese
Este ciudat să te aud vorbind în chinezește.
It’s weird hearing you speak Chinese.
5. Time and Romanian Adverbs
Second only perhaps to adverbs of degree, adverbs of time are quite necessary for sounding natural in casual speech. You can think of several of these as nouns, but as they modify verbs, they’re properly called adverbs.
1- aseară – last night
Aseară a fost foarte frig.
It was very cold last night.
2- ieri – yesterday
Ieri ți-ai spălat mașina.
You washed your car yesterday.
3- mâine – tomorrow
Plec acasă mâine.
I am going home tomorrow.
4- duminica – every Sunday
Duminica merg cu familia la biserică.
I go with my family at the church every Sunday.
5- niciodată – never
Tatăl dumneavoastră nu ar face niciodată asta.
Your father would never have done this.
6- din când în când – from time to time
El îți menționează numele din când în când.
He mentions your name from time to time.
7- totdeauna – always
El a promis că îi va fi totdeauna aproape.
He promised to be always near her.
8- acum – now
Am intrat acum în ultimele secunde ale jocului.
We’re now into the final seconds of the game.
9- de obicei – usually
De obicei, ea se ocupă de asta.
She usually handles that.
10- mai târziu – later
Vorbim mai târziu despre această problemă.
We’ll talk later about this issue.
11- în seara aceasta – tonight
Dacă nu sunt ocupată, pot să fac un tort în seara asta.
If I’m not busy, I can make a cake tonight.
12- uneori – sometimes
Uneori chiar ești amuzant.
Sometimes you’re really funny.
13- vreodată – never
Nu am crezut că voi mai fi vreodată în stare să joc tenis.
I thought I would never be able to play tennis.
14- rareori – rarely
El rareori părăsește calculatorul lui.
He rarely leaves his computer.
15- mereu – always
Sunt mereu ultimul care își termină tema pentru acasă.
I’m always the last one who finishes the homework.
16- actualmente – at present
Actualmente nu existã nici un remediu pentru cancer.
At present there is no cure for cancer.
17- anual – annually
Această sumă este indexată anual.
This amount is annually indexed.
18- lunar – monthly
Ea a fost plătită lunar pentru că a avut grijă de câinele meu.
She was paid monthly for taking care of my dog.
19- săptămânal – weekly
Duminica seara ea întocmește meniurile săptămânale.
On Sunday evening she is planning her weekly menus.
O astfel de situație poate deveni foarte periculoasăi.
A situation like this could get quite dangerous.
4- în felul acela – like that
Mă enervez când mă tratezi în felul acela.
I get angry when you treat me like that.
5- mai bine – better
Acest serviciu e mai bine decât am crezut.
This job is better than I thought.
6- mai rău – worse
Au fost tratați mai rău decât niște animale.
They were treated worse than animals.
7- la fel de – as well as
Nu cred că îi cunoaște cineva la fel de bine ca tine.
I don’t think anyone knows them as well as you.
8- nu – not
Asta nu este bine deloc.
That’s not good at all.
9- cu ușurință – easily
Înțeleg cu ușurință toate visele tale.
I can easily understand all your dreams .
7. Showing Cause and Effect
As another stepping stone to fluent and correct Romanian, adverbs of conjunction like these will show your listener that you understand how to organize your ideas well.
1- așadar – therefore
Așadar, ei se simt intimidați de către tine.
Therefore, they feel intimidated by you.
2- totodată – however
Totodată, rezultatul acesta nu este ceea ce ne așteptam.
This result, however, is not what we expected.
3- în caz de – in case of
Nu folosiți liftul în caz de cutremur.
Don’t use the elevator in case of an earthquake.
4- pentru că – because
Lui îi place de ea pentru că este amuzantă.
He likes her because she is funny.
5- așa că – so that
Mi-am anulat călătoria, așa că pot sta cu bunica mea bolnavă.
I cancelled my trip so that I could stay with my sick grandmother.
6- astfel încât să – in order to
El și-a mutat biroul, astfel încât să aibă o panoramă mai bună.
He moved his desk in order to get a better view.
8. Adverbs Made From Adjectives
Now we’re coming to the words that commonly fit the way we think of adverbs in English: a special, modified form of an adjective. You’ll note that a lot of these adverbs in Romanian don’t actually take a special form, though. That makes things easier for you!
1- afectuous – affectionately
Ea a vorbit mereu afectuos despre el.
She always talked about him so warmly.
2- rece – coldly
Aleksei le-a vorbit rece.
Aleksei spoke to them coldly.
3- Cu interes – With interest
Voi urmări cu interes progresul tău.
I shall watch your progress with interest.
4- plăcut – pleasantly
Uneori realitatea de poate surprinde într-un mod plăcut.
Sometimes reality can pleasantly surprise you.
5- Tare – strongly
Putem auzi muzica joaca tare jos.
We can hear the music playing loudly downstairs.
6- rar – slowly
Respiră adânc și rar.
Breathe deeply and slowly.
7- incet – sluggishly
Autobuzul s-a miscat incet.
The bus moved sluggishly.
8- frumos – beautifully
Maria scrie frumos.
Maria writes beautifully.
9- repede – quickly
Vă rugăm să scrie la această adresă repede.
Please write to this address quickly.
10- oribil – horribly
Sunt sigur că totul se va termina oribil.
I’m sure everything will go horribly wrong.
11- Groaznic – terribly
E groaznic de trist.
It’s so horribly sad.
12- prietenește – jovially
S-a purtat prietenește cu tine?
He was friendly to you?
13- cu precizie – accurately
Acești parametri trebuie să fie înregistrați cu precizie.
Excellent work on learning one hundred adverbs! If you read that last sentence and your palms started sweating because you’re not quite ready to show off your Romanian yet, don’t worry.
RomanianPod101 helps you ease yourself into the language without stress or bad vibes. We’ve got lessons, articles like this one, and free YouTube videos for any part of the language you’d like. Join us now and see how far Romanian can take you!
In the meantime, if you have any questions about Romanian adverbs, don’t hesitate to reach out in the comments. We’re always glad to help you out!
Romanian verb conjugations are way, way easier than they might appear to be.
That’s good, too—because they look pretty bad!
If you want to learn to speak good Romanian, you definitely can’t ignore the conjugations. English doesn’t have a lot of conjugations, but you still notice the mistake if someone says “He go to the library.”
Multiply that by the numerous Romanian conjugations, and it can seem, at first glance, like the language is a minefield just waiting to trip you up.In reality, though, you just need to learn a couple of key patterns. Quite a few of the conjugations are rarely used these days, and in casual conversations, you’ll hear the same conjugations over and over again.
If you look at a sprawling list of every single Romanian conjugation, you’ll probably feel overwhelmed. Truth be told, that’s a pretty dishonest way of presenting information to students. You don’t need to care about everything at once, not at all.
There are three terms that we’ll be discussing in this article, and it’s important that you know what they mean in English before learning them in Romanian. These terms are directly associated with Romanian verb conjugation patterns, so pay attention.
First is “person,” which refers to the individual and the identity of who’s using the verb. That could be:
First person: Equivalent to “I” in English.
Second person: Equivalent to “you” and “you all.”
Third person: Anybody else being referred to, such as “he,” “she,” ” it,” or “them.”
Next is “mood,” or how you feel about what you’re saying. For example, if it’s a statement of fact, you’d use one mood; if it’s a wish, you’d use another. English has just four moods, but Romanian has nine! There’s plenty of resources out there for clarification, and most of these moods are used infrequently anyway.
Then we have “tense,” which you’re likely already familiar with as well. It’s about what time something happened, or when it happened related to other events. English and Romanian both have lots of tenses, so it’s not too difficult to find conjugations that are equivalent in meaning.
2. Verb Groups in Romanian
There are four Romanian verb groups, much like French, Italian, and Spanish. These are words that have the same type of ending in the infinitive, and therefore follow the same patterns.
Well, kind of. Some of them have extra endings! Let’s see what the Romanian verb endings look like by conjugating into the first person present (the equivalent of “I do”).
Type 1: Verbs ending in -a,like a înota, meaning “to swim.” The first person present is eu înot. Simple enough. However, some verbs conjugate with the ending –ez.
Type 2: Verbs ending in -ea. No subtypes here! Once you know how to conjugate one -ea verb, you know them all.
Type 3: Verbs ending in -e. Again, no exceptions to this rule.
Type 4: Verbs ending in -i or -î. Sometimes these verbs will end in -esc, and sometimes in -ăsc.
Hopefully, you’re beginning to see that Romanian verbs have a lot of things for you to think about. A lot of this just has to be memorized, and it would be a great idea for you to work on memorizing a verb chart early. The earlier you memorize the chart, the faster everything will become automatic for you.
3. Things That Happened in the Past
In order to present things in a chronological manner, we’ll start with a quick overview of the past tenses in Romanian. These are the most common ones you’ll see when reading books or news articles anyway, so they’re very important to know.
Romanian has four different past tenses. We will start with discussing the simple perfect and the compound perfect.
Those are the equivalents of “I did” and “I have done.” The difference is that in English, those have two separate meanings. In Romanian, they mean the same thing, but the simple perfect is used more for writing, while the compound is used more for speaking. The six conjugation forms for the simple perfect are as follows. Romanian usually drops the pronoun, so we’ll show it with only the verb form. We’re using the example a face (“to do”), which as you’ll recall, is a Type 2 verb.
“I did”
“You did”
“He/she/it did”
“We did”
“You (plural) did”
“They did”
făcui
făcuși
făcu
făcuram
făcurăți
făcură
The compound perfect is way easier! You just have to memorize one single conjugation—for the helping verb a avea (“to have”)—and then add the past participle of the actual verb. Just like in English, really.
“I have done”
“You have done”
“He/she/it has done”
“We have done”
“You (plural) have done”
“They have done”
am făcut
ai făcut
a făcut
am făcut
ați făcut
au făcut
One more important distinction is a tense called the imperfect. In Romanian, the pluperfect (mai mult ca perfect) is another past tense that originates from Latin and also exists in other languages. The main specific value of the pluperfect is of a relative moment in time, expressing a past process that happened before another past process.
“I had been doing”
“You had been doing”
“He/she/it had been doing”
“We had been doing”
“You (plural) had been doing”
“They were doing”
făcusem
făcusei
făcuse
făcuserăm
făcuserăți
făcuseră
It also exists in Spanish and Italian, so it’s nothing unique—but we don’t have it in English. It’s used for talking about ongoing actions in the past. The perfect is for completed actions only—the difference between “I was reading a book” and “I read a book.”
“I was doing”
“You were doing”
“He/she/it was doing”
“We were doing”
“You (plural) were doing”
“They were doing”
făceam
făceai
făcea
făceam
făceați
făceau
În timp ce dormeam, mi-a umblat prin lucruri. “While I was sleeping, he went through my things.”
In the sentence above, dormeam is imperfect, while umblat is perfect because it marks a completed action.
4. Things That are Happening Now
Moving on from what has happened, let’s now talk about things that are happening or that do happen. If you’re a native speaker or advanced learner of English, that last sentence should show you quite clearly the difference between the present progressive tense and the present simple tense.
Now, let’s look at Romanian present tense conjugations:
“I do”
“You do”
“He/she/it does”
“We do”
“You (plural) do”
“They do”
fac
faci
face
facem
faceți
fac
Ea se învârte în cerc.
“She’s running in circles.”
Fac yoga în fiecare dimineață. “I do yoga every morning.”
We need to use the subjunctive mood now, in a place that might seem a little odd.
The subjunctive isn’t terribly hard to produce. It’s the same as the present indicative, but for the “he/she/it” and “they” parts, we change the ending to -ască.
So what’s odd about the subjunctive? Usually, it’s used to express hopes or wishes or, as mentioned before, unreal statements. In Romanian, it’s not only that. It’s also used any time we use the connecting word să.
Aș vrea să pot. “I wish I could.”
Aș fi vrut ca el să vorbească cu noi. “I wish he would talk to us.”
5. Things That are Going to Happen
The future tense in Romanian might be challenging to understand. We use a helping verb to express what happens in the future. The reasons for this, as compared to the complexities of other Romance languages can either be searched in the history of grammar or are not completely known. Here is an example of a verb conjugation in the future tense:
“I will do”
“You will do”
“He/she/it will do”
“We will do”
“You (plural) will do”
“They will do”
voi face
vei face
va face
vom face
veți face
vor face
Ne vom întâlni din nou. “We will meet again.”
When talking about a plan, the present is commonly used, e.g. “I will go there on Monday” =”Luni merg acolo”.
There are also other forms of the future tense that are used in the spoken language.
Two of the spoken future tenses are interchangeable, form I is “o să” + present (present form according to number and person) and form II is “a avea” (conjugated according to number and person) + “să” + present (according to number and person). Form III describes a future that is not sure, with an undetermined probability. It is used to express intent, but lack of assurance that the subject will go through with the action intended. It is conjugated as such: oi/oi/o/om/oți/or + infinitive(without the a).
Ai să citești?/ Will you read?
O să mă gândesc la programul pentru mâine./ I will think about the schedule for tomorrow.
Om face ceva de mâncare. / We’ll (probably) make something to eat.
6. Conclusion
The main thing you have to keep in mind as you gaze over this long and wide set of conjugation tables is this: Romanian babies know this too.
Well, toddlers at least.
And that comes from tens of thousands of hours living and breathing the Romanian language, 24/7.
You don’t need to put in quite that kind of time, but you do need to actually expose yourself to the language as it’s spoken and written. Only that kind of slowly accumulating experience is going to give you the feeling for things like using the subjunctive or the imperfect.
At the same time, don’t ignore the benefits of actually sitting down and studying. That, combined with good Romanian content, is going to make the process a whole lot shorter.
RomanianPod101.com is the best place on the web for getting both grammar lessons and excellent audio and text resources in real, authentic Romanian.
As you read and listen, pay attention to the conjugations instead of just directly translating them in your mind. Think about which tenses are being used, and which pronouns are present or omitted.
That kind of language consciousness is going to pay off big time as you jump leaps and bounds ahead of your Romanian-learning peers!
In the meantime, don’t hesitate to reach out in the comments section with any questions you have about Romanian verb conjugations. We’ll do our best to help you out!
A sentence without a verb is like a bird without a nest.
It wants to fly around and express itself, but without a foundation to rely upon, it’s limited.
How’s your knowledge of Romanian verbs? We understand—the grammar is no joke. You don’t really want to learn verbs when you could be enjoying Romanian TV shows and music.
But if you never end up paying attention to Romanian verbs, you’ll find yourself lost for words all the time.
Advanced learners need to learn the grammatical nuances, as well as just the plain old nuances of the lexicon itself. Beginner learners need to nail down a foundation of basic words for everyday use.Enough chit-chat. In this article, you’re going to learn 100 Romanian verbs, every one of them shown conjugated in an example for better learning efficiency.
You’re probably learning Romanian for travel, is that right? That’s why we’ve put the verbs of motion and traveling—the most common Romanian verbs—right here at the top, so that you learn them when you’re fresh.
1. arrive – a ajunge
Cred că el va ajunge în curând.
I believe he’ll arrive soon.
2. come – a veni
Prietenul meu a venit azi pe la mine.
My friend came over today.
3. enter – a intra
Era cât pe ce să intre în cameră.
He was just about to enter the room.
4. go – a merge
Se pare că trebuie să mergem.
It looks like we need to go.
5. leave – a pleca
Trebuie să plec neîntârziat.
I have to leave immediately.
6. return – a se întoarce
Amy nu s-a întors acasă în acea noapte.
Amy didn’t return home that night.
7. ride a bike – a merge cu bicicleta
Nu știam că poți să mergi pe bicicletă.
I didn’t know you could ride a bike.
8. sightsee – a vizita
Nu am venit aici să vizitez.
I didn’t come here for sightseeing.
9. stay – a rămână
Nimeni nu știe dacă să rămână sau să plece.
Nobody knows whether to stay or go.
10. travel – a călători
Am călătorit 10,000 de mile pentru a fi aici.
I traveled 10,000 miles to be here.
11. walk – a plimba
El s-a dus în parc ca să se plimbe.
He went for a walk in the park.
2. Verbs About Interacting with Others
Language at its core is all about interaction. In this list of Romanian verbs, you’ll learn about speaking with and listening to Romanians, other learners, or people who have no idea how to speak Romanian at all!
12. ask – a întreba
Niciodată să nu întrebi o femeie despre vârsta ei.
Noi punem întrebări pentru a înțelege lucrurile mai bine.
We ask questions to understand things better.
3. Verbs About Daily Activities
Daily activities are some of the easiest things to describe in Romanian, if only because you’ll be reminded of those words as you do them every day. Here’s a Romanian verbs list of things you probably do often.
24. bathe – a face baie
Ea îi face baie bebelușului în fiecare seară.
She is bathing the baby every evening.
25. buy – a cumpăra
Am cumpărat un bilet greșit.
I bought the wrong ticket.
26. clean – a curăța
Sper că el mă va ajuta să curăț bucătăria.
I hope he will help me clean the kitchen.
27. cook – a găti
Bunica lui adoră să gătească.
His grandmother loves to cook.
28. dance – a dansa
Nu pot să dansez cu el.
I can’t dance with him.
29. draw – a desena
O să desenez o față tristă.
I’ll draw a sad face.
30. eat – a mânca
Nu mănânc carne sau fructe de mare.
I don’t eat meat or seafood.
31. drink – a bea
Dimineața îmi place să beau cafea.
I like to drink coffee in the morning.
32. exercise – a exersa
Exersez timp de 10 minute în fiecare zi.
I exercise for 10 minutes every day.
33. get up – a se scula
Scoală-te, e timpul să mergem!
Get up, it’s time to go!
34. look for – a căuta
Îmi voi căuta o altă slujbă.
I’m going to look for another job.
35. read – a citi
Am citit multe despre tine.
I’ve read a lot about you.
36. rent – a închiria
Noi am închiriat o casă în Palm Springs.
We rented a house in Palm Springs.
37. rest – a se odihni
Acum, tu ar trebui să te odihnești.
You should rest now.
38. see – a vedea
Poți vedea diferența?
Can you see the difference?
39. sleep – a dormi
Tu ar trebui să mergi acasă și să dormi.
You should go home and sleep.
40. text – a trimite un mesaj
Tatăl tău mi-a trimis un mesaj.
Your father texted me.
41. wake up – a se trezi
El se va trezi în 5 minute.
He’ll wake up in 5 minutes.
42. write – a scrie
El a scris raportul.
He wrote the report.
4. Abstract Verbs for Abstract Concepts
Some verbs just don’t fit into boxes. This category is for verbs that are more abstract in meaning, that is, verbs that are hard to describe with other words. Imagine trying to describe “become” in your native language! That’s why vocabulary is so important. Take a look at some of the most important Romanian verbs to describe difficult concepts.
43. become – a deveni
Puteam să devin președinte dacă doream.
I could become President if I wanted.
44. begin – a începe
Atacul a început la ora 02:35.
The attack began at 02:35.
45. to be able to – a putea
Mă bucur că am putut fi de ajutor.
I’m glad I was able to help.
46. do – a face
Vreau să îmi fac tema.
I want to do my homework.
47. exist – a exista
Persoana aceea nu mai exista.
That person doesn’t exist anymore.
48. finish – a termina
N-am terminat programul de instrucție.
I didn’t finish the training program.
49. pay – a plăti
Aveam de gând să plătesc pentru cină.
I had planned to pay for the dinner.
50. look for – a căuta
Îmi voi căuta o altă slujbă.
I’m going to look for another job.
51. resemble – a semăna cu
Fetița seamănă cu mama ei.
The little girl resembles her mother.
52. thank – a mulțumi
I-am mulțumit cu o cafea.
I thanked him with a coffee.
53. think – a considera
Cum consideri tu că e mai bine.
Whatever you think is best.
54. use – a folosi
Ei se folosesc de tine.
They’re using you.
55. want – a vrea
El vrea o mașină nouă.
He wants a new car.
5. Moving Things Around
Interact with objects in the environment—that sounds like a video game description, but if you want to speak correctly and accurately about everyday things in Romanian (not just about people), then you’ll need these Romanian language verbs as well.
Are you headed to Romania for a job or for a degree? These are some of the most-used verbs in Romanian when discussing those concepts!
70. close – a închide
La ce oră închizi magazinul?
What time do you close the shop?
71. correct – a corecta
Te rog să mă corectezi.
Please correct me.
72. erase – a șterge
Pentru a șterge mesajul, apăsați tasta patru.
To erase the message, press four.
73. learn – a învăța
Unde ai învățat germana?
Where did you learn German?
74. memorize – a memora
Îmi ia ceva timp ca să memorez un nume.
It takes me a while to memorize a name.
75. prepare – a pregăti
Mai bine te-ai pregăti pentru mâine.
You’d better prepare for tomorrow.
76. sell – a vinde
Ea vinde legume și fructe.
She sells vegetables and fruits.
77. send – a trimite
Profesorul îți va trimite o evaluare.
The teacher will send you an evaluation.
78. serve – a servi
Am servit țara mea cu mândrie.
I served my country proudly.
79. shop – a cumpăra
Toți vecinii cumpără de la acest magazin.
All the neighbors shop at this store.
80. study – a studia
Ce o să studiezi?
What are you going to study?
81. teach – a preda
Acolo voi preda franceza.
I’m going to teach French there.
82. wipe – a șterge
Șterge tot machiajul ăla!
Wipe off all that makeup!
83. work – să lucreze
Primul nostru programator a plecat să lucreze pentru Google.
Our first programmer went to work at Google.
7. Thoughts and Feelings
Romanians are open about their thoughts and feelings, more so than residents of other countries. Here, it’s all right for you to cry if you’re feeling overwhelmed with things.
In this section are some very useful verbs about expressing your emotions through actions, as well as verbs about thinking.
84. cry – a plânge
Te rog nu plânge.
Please don’t cry.
85. dream – a visa
Sunt sigur că nu am visat.
I’m sure I wasn’t dreaming.
86. feel – a simți
El se simte bolnav și obosit.
He feels sick and tired.
87. forget – a uita
Mi-am uitat cheia.
I forgot my key.
88. hear – a auzi
Ai auzit asta?
Did you hear that?
89. laugh – a râde
Ea a râs în fața mea.
She laughed in my face.
90. like – a place
Nu-mi place deloc.
I don’t like it at all.
91. love – a iubi
Mă mai iubești?
Do you still love me?
92. miss – a-ți lipsi
În pofida tuturor lucrurilor, îmi lipsește sora mea.
Despite everything, I miss my sister.
93. need – a avea nevoie
Am venit aici pentru că am nevoie de o prietenă.
I came here because I needed a friend.
94. remember – a își aminti
Tot nu-mi amintesc unde am pus banii.
I still don’t remember where I put the money.
95. respect – a respecta
Ei îmi respectă părerea.
They respect my opinion.
8. Move Your Body
Last, a couple of verbs that relate to physically moving your body, even if you aren’t actually going anywhere with those movements. These might not be your daily activities—instead, they’re more like tiny verbs that you usually do but rarely say.
96. live – a trăi
Cât de mult trăiesc broaștele țestoase?
How long do turtles live?
97. stand – a sta
Te rog nu-mi sta în drum!
Please, don’t stand in my way!
98. sweat – a transpira
De obicei nu transpir atât de mult!
I don’t usually sweat so much!
99. hug – a îmbrățișa
S-au îmbrățișat și s-au sărutat.
They hugged and kissed.
100. wait – a aștepta
Te rog să aștepți în zona de primire.
Please wait in the reception area.
101. watch – a privi
Privește cu atenție și apoi repetă.
Watch carefully and then repeat.
9. Conclusion
Congratulations! 100+ Romanian verbs under your belt. You’ve truly hit a great milestone here, and you should be proud.
This is very much an effective way to learn Romanian, by the way.
Romanian grammar is nothing to be trifled with, and by seeing a hundred examples of verbs in different conjugations, you’ve got a great practical background to go with your theoretical knowledge gained from courses or grammar books. If you do want more information on Romanian conjugation, though, keep an eye out for our upcoming article!
Are there any Romanian verbs we didn’t cover that you want to know? Let us know in the comments, and we’ll do our best to help you out!
You should be, because although the Romanian pronoun system is complex, native speakers use it without thinking. If it was too unwieldy, it would have been pared down and simplified over time.
We’ll be here to guide you as well. We’ll provide a couple of tricks and links that you might not find in other resources.And besides, it’s not like you can just ignore this. You already know quite a bit of it from just a few simple introductory phrases! Pronouns are so integral to the Romanian language that you’ll soon integrate them perfectly into your own speech and writing without breaking a sweat.
First, you should know about cases. Did you ever take Latin, German, or Russian?
If so, don’t panic! Romanian cases are significantly simpler than cases in those three languages. But they’re still there, and we’ll be describing its cases here in this article. Yes, Romanian has three cases (which are an inheritance from Latin), but truly, there are a lot of words that don’t change.
Romanian has a bit of terminology here that’s pretty unique among European languages, namely the terms “stressed” and “unstressed.” These refer to two different forms of the pronoun in each case.
“Unstressed” is a simpler way to say “clitic,” which is a technical term that pretty much nobody needs to know (but if you’re interested, you can look it up).
All it means is that the pronoun accompanies a verb. In most cases, it’s actually folded into the verb. In English, we contract “I am” into “I’m.” That same process happens quite a bit more in Romanian, and you’ll learn all about it!
In contrast, “stressed” pronouns appear by themselves, always with a preposition. One of the most common prepositions is pe, which is used when talking about people. You’ll see this a lot in emphatic sentences.
Te iubesc pe tine.
I love you (and nobody else).
Here, te is an unstressed form (matching with the verb iubesc), and pe tine is the stressed form to add emphasis.
But we’re getting ahead of ourselves!
Let’s start from the beginning and learn each form of Romanian pronouns.
2. Romanian Personal Pronouns: Case by Case
Learning the pronouns all at once is going to be pretty confusing. We’ll definitely have a good selection of example sentences for you to look at, but count on re-reading this as a reference page in the future.
1. The Nominative
The nominative case is the “basic” case for all nouns and pronouns. This is what you use for the subject of a sentence, and what you’ll see in a dictionary.We’ll start with the informal Romanian nominative pronouns. This is what you’re likely to hear the most in songs and on TV, though when you actually go to Romania, you’ll want to crank up the politeness factor a little bit.
English
Romanian
I
tu
you
tu
he
el
she
ea
we
noi
you (plural)
voi
they (men; men and women)
ei
they (only women)
ele
Here you can note that Romanian distinguishes between men and women when referring to a group of people, and indeed between masculine and feminine when referring to a group of nouns.
Fără ele ești pierdut.
Without them (women) you would be lost.
Eu sunt la magazin.
I’m at the store.
Ea este cea mai bună.
She’s the best there is.
Also, in English we say “It’s him!” but in Romanian the literal equivalent would be “It is he!”
El este!
It’s him!
And now for some formal pronouns. Romanian has formal versions of everything except the first-person “I’ and “we” pronouns.
What’s more, there are actually several levels of politeness for all this. We’ll go with the most commonly used variants in speech first.
English
Romanian (polite)
Romanian (polite and formal)
you
dumneata
dumneavoastră
he
dânsul
dumnealui
she
dânsa
dumneaei
you (plural)
dumneavoastră
dumneavoastră
they (men; men and women)
dânşii
dumnealor
they (women)
dânsele
dânsele
The “polite” category is slowly falling out of use, as many people feel that it’s actually just about the same as the “informal” category anyway. However, among people who still use it, the difference is subtle yet apparent.
“Polite” pronouns are for people you know but aren’t very well-acquainted with, like coworkers or people you meet up with for classes. “Polite and formal” indicates not only an absence of friendship, but also a difference in societal ranking, for example a professor and students.
Note that the formal“you” is conjugated the same way in singular and plural form—in fact, it’s always the plural form, following the pattern in German, Spanish, and other languages with this distinction.
Dumneavoastră aveți timp?
Do you have time?
That’s a long word! And that’s why you’ll much more commonly see it dropped entirely, using only the verb to connote politeness.
Aveți timp?
Do you have time?
So for the subject of a sentence, as you can see, Romanian usually drops the pronoun entirely.
But that doesn’t mean pronouns in Romanian are useless. Far from it.
2. The Accusative
The accusative case refers to the direct object of a verb. Now we’ll start breaking things up into stressed and unstressed variants. Here’s a table of the Romanian accusative pronouns.
English
Romanian accusative (stressed)
Romanian accusative (unstressed)
I
mine
mă
he
el
te
he
el
îl
she
ea
o
we
noi
ne
you (plural)
voi
vă
they (men; men and women)
ei
îi
they (women)
ele
le
Oh man.
Remember, though, that only mine and tine actually changed in the stressed form. And yes, you do have to learn new unstressed forms, but it’s not so bad because the consonant remains the same for all the words that have consonants.
There’s more logic, too: The vowel î is a relatively hard sound to make, and so you’ll see in a moment how it disappears when our unstressed (connected) forms start getting slapped onto verbs.
The hard part is that the unstressed forms combine in different ways. Since this is already a lot to swallow, we won’t go into detail about the rules for the unstressed forms. Many learners pick it up from lots of examples, and if you end up reading and listening to a lot of Romanian, you will too!
I-ai anunţat?
Did you tell them?
Here we’ve combined îi with the helping verb ai. We’ll use the easier vowel, so the î drops away and leaves us with a combining i-. Romanian is nice enough to keep the hyphens for our reference!
Now some more examples of combined pronouns.
Daniela mi-a telefonat.
Daniela telephoned me.
Îi voi da cartea mâine.
I will give him the book tomorrow.
Ni s-a spus că putem pleca acasă.
We were told that we could go home.
3. The Dative
We’re on the home stretch now with the last of the three cases in Romanian. The dative case usually translates pretty well with the pronoun “to” in English. For example: “I sent a letter to her.” It’s also called the indirect object. Here are the Romanian dative pronouns:
English
Romanian dative (stressed)
Romanian dative (unstressed)
I
mie
îmi
you
ție
îți
he
lui
îi
she
ei
îi
we
nouă
ne
you (plural)
vouă
vă
they (men; men and women)
lor
le
they (women)
lor
le
Oh jeez.
Again, it’s not as bad as you might think. These dative pronouns are so common in the words and phrases that beginners learn most, that you probably already recognize one very important one.
In this example, one of the first phrases that everybody learns in Romanian is a dative pronoun. Specifically “to me,” because what you’re literally saying with this expression is “It is bad to me.”
3. Romanian Possessive Pronouns
In continuing the theme of Romanian grammar being at once alike and different from other European languages, there’s a subtle yet tricky difference in the matter of possessive pronouns.
First, the pronoun comes after the noun. That’s relatively normal, though, occurring also in Spanish and Italian.
Pisica mea.
My cat.
What’s unusual is that the word for “my” changes depending on gender and number of the object.
Pisicile mele.
My cats.
Let’s have a look at another Romanian pronouns table:
Singular masc./ntr.
Singular fem.
Plural masc.
Plural fem./ntr.
my
meu
mea
mei
mele
our
nostru
noastră
noștri
noastre
your (singular)
tău
ta
tăi
tale
your (plural)
vostru
voastră
voștri
voastre
his/her
său
sa
săi
sale
Wow.
But wait! There’s still a pattern. Look carefully and you can see that the same consonant roots hold true from the Romanian nominative pronoun chart. Furthermore, the plural first-person (our) and second-person (your) share the same pattern, as do singular second-person (your) and singular third-person (his/her).
It’s a lot to take in, no doubt about it.
Remember to pay special attention to how, in the singular, masculine and neuter nouns are grouped together. In the plural, it’s feminine and neuter.
We’re definitely going to need some examples here.
Fraţii noştri sunt studenţi.
Our brothers are students.
Pe masă sunt cărţile mele.
My books are on the table.
In fact, this chart could be significantly more complicated if we added all of the formal forms.
We will, however, include the most common: dumneavoastră. As the formal “you,” this gets used very often in Romanian, and it’s also dead simple to understand.
It doesn’t change at all!
Prietenii dumneavoastră.
Your friends.
Prietenul dumneavoastră.
Your friend.
Ironically, if you happen to study in a way that makes you used to applying rules for meu, mea, mei, and so on, you might look at an example sentence with dumneavoastră and think that something’s missing. Nope, it’s just the Romanian language cutting you a break.
4. Pronouns in Questions
The last major thing we need to cover here is when we ask questions with pronouns. This is an incredibly common situation, as you probably know.
Right now, we’re only going to cover the nominative case. They do change for case, but questions outside the nominative are relatively rare and we all know that you’ve seen a lot of charts today.
1. Who? – Cine?
Cine este acolo?
Who’s there?
Cine este responsabil?
Who is in charge?
2. What? – Ce?
Ce i-ai spus?
What did you say?
Ce este asta?
What is that?
3. Which? – Care?
Pe care o vrei?
Which do you want?
Care e al vostru?
Which one is yours?
4. Whose? – A cui?
A cui pantofi sunt aia?
Whose shoes are these?
A cui idee a fost?
Whose idea was it?
As you can see, learning only the nominative case for these question pronouns is definitely enough to get you going on your road to Romanian fluency!
5. Conclusion
So throughout this article, we’ve mentioned that there’s more.
More pronouns to learn, more cases in which pronouns might or might not change, and so on.
One of the best ways is seriously to copy down these charts. Even better is if you copy down our charts, and then go find another one, then copy down that one too. By copying information down in your notes from two different sources, you’ll get to actually see the relationships between these words and their functions, and through that you’ll boost your memory.
The other way is to rely on immersion.
Mix a little bit of grammar study (such as reading these articles) with immersive, interesting content in Romanian. That’s going to make a lot of these pronoun tricks fall into place.
And what better place for interesting and immersive content than RomanianPod101? You’ll get access to all of our lessons on vocabulary, grammar, conversations, and more, in an easy format for you to take wherever you need to!
In the meantime, let us know in the comments how you feel about Romanian pronouns after going through this Romanian pronoun list. Are there any questions you still have? We’ll do our best to help you out.
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