1

The Romanian Language

Lesson 1: Pronunciation

Letter Pronunciation As in the English word...

a ah father

e eh bet

i ee beet

o oh pole

u oo pool

ă uh but

î ew Not an English sound

ţ ts Pittsburg

ş sh shower

c ch before an "i" or "e" beach

ch k bike

g j before an "i" or "e" juice

gh g bag

IMPORTANT NOTE: Any Romanian word starting with "e" is pronounced with an English
"y" sound at the beginning.
Example: "este" is pronounced as yes-teh

Diphthongs
Note: You don't have to memorize these if you can remember just to put the two vowel
sounds together to make the diphthong sound.

Мультиязыковой проект Ильи Франка www.franklang.ru 1

 2
Example:

i (ee) + e (eh) = ie (yeh)

o (oh) + a (ah) = oa (wah)

Sound Clips
Below are sound clips of the numbers 1-10. This will teach you the basic numbers and give you
an idea of the Romanian pronunciation and accent. We're providing these pretty much just
because we had them on file, and we figured why not?

1 through 5

6 through 10

1. unu
2. doi
3. trei
4. patru
5. cinci
6. şase
7. şapte
8. opt
9. noua
10. zece

Lesson 2: Subject Pronouns

The English subject pronouns ( I, you, he, we, etc.) are the same in Romanian. The only
exception is that Romanian, like the other Romance languages, has a singular and plural "you"
form. See the following list:

eu
I

tu
you

el, ea
he, she

noi
we

Мультиязыковой проект Ильи Франка www.franklang.ru 2

 3

voi
you (pl)

ei, ele
they (m), they (f)

NOTES:

1. The subject pronoun is not normally used before the verb in spoken Romanian. However, it
can be used to show emphasis.
El merge la cinemă. He is going to the cinema. (As opposed to someone else going)

2. If there is a group of masculine and feminine nouns, it is referred to by the subject pronoun ei.
Nelu şi Lidia sînt aici. Nelu and Lidia are here.
Ei sînt aici. They are here.

3. If a person wishes to address someone in a formal tone, the speaker would use the subject
pronoun dumneavoastră. This pronoun is conjugated the same as voi.

Words in this Lesson

aici here

la to, at

Lesson 3: Basic Verbs

Two of the most basic verbs in Romanian are a fi (to be) and a avea (to have).
Below is the present tense conjugation of these verbs.

a fi

sînt I am sîntem we are

eşti you are sînteţi you are (pl.)

este he, she, it is sînt they are

a avea

am I have avem we have

Мультиязыковой проект Ильи Франка www.franklang.ru 3

 4

ai you have aveţi you have (pl.)

are he, she, it has au they have

Example sentences:

Unde sînt? Where am I?

Nu aveţi o carte? You all don't have a book?
Raul şi eu sîntem acasă. Raul and I are at home.
Unde este o carte? OR
Unde e o carte? Where is a book?

NOTES:

1. As you may have noticed, the conjugation este can be shortened to e, and is done so in spoken
Romanian.
2.  The negation of a verb is done by preceding it with nu. This can be abbreviated as n- before a
word starting with a vowel.
i.e. N-aveţi o carte? You all don't have a book?

Other useful verbs:

a vorbi      

vorbesc I speak, I am vorbim we speak

speaking, I do speak

vorbeşti you speak vorbiţi you speak

vorbeşte he, she, it speaks vorbesc they speak

a merge      

merg I go, I am going, I do mergem we go

go

mergi you go mergeţi you go

merge he, she, it goes merg they go

Мультиязыковой проект Ильи Франка www.franklang.ru 4

 5

     
a şti

ştiu I know ştim we know

ştii you know ştiţi you know

ştie he, she, it knows ştiu they know

NOTES:
1. As you can see, the present tense is slightly different in Romanian. The conjugation vorbesc
can mean "I speak", "I am speaking", or "I do speak". It is this way for all Romanian verbs, so as
other verbs are listed later on, it is understood that the 'am' and 'do' forms are also present,
though only the first type will be listed. Sorry if that paragraph was confusing. Basically, the
present tenses translate to English in the same way that French or Spanish does.

Words in this Lesson

unde where

o carte a book

acasă at home

Lesson 4: Plurals

In this lesson, you will learn the general rules of pluralization. Since these lessons are geared
towards a grammatical structure, there is no basic nouns vocabulary section. Well, not yet
anyways. However, word translations will be provided in the hopes that you will learn these
words in the best way possible - by seeing them in action.
Before we start into the plurals, let me first introduce the basic categories of Romanian words.
They are as follows:

Masculine singular Feminine singular Neuter singular

Masculine plural Feminine plural Neuter plural

You will see nouns and adjectives grouped into these categories. As you see more and more
words, you will pick up on certain patterns.
(Example pattern that you probably wouldn't know yet: Neuter nouns are like the masculine in

Мультиязыковой проект Ильи Франка www.franklang.ru 5

 6
the singular, but like feminine in the plural.)

That said, let's move into plurals.

Masculine
The plural for a masculine verb is made mostly by adding -i to the end of the word.

român Romanian

români Romanians

locuitor inhabitant

locuitori inhabitants

In some cases this will cause the final consonant to change.

copil child

copii children

acrobat acrobat

acrobaţi acrobats

And words that end in a vowel have that vowel replaced by -i.

litru liter

litri liters

fiu son

fii sons

Мультиязыковой проект Ильи Франка www.franklang.ru 6

 7
Feminine

Feminine nouns are a little more diverse in their forms.

Those ending in -ă form the plural by substituting an -e or an -i.

oră hour

ore hours

gară station

gări stations

Those ending in -e, replace it with an -i:

carte book

cărţi books

Those ending in -ură, replace it with -uri :

prăjitură pastry

prăjituri pastries

Those ending in -ie, replace it with -ii :

staţie bus/underground stop

staţii bus/underground stops

Those ending in -ea, replace it with -ele :

cafea coffee

Мультиязыковой проект Ильи Франка www.franklang.ru 7

 8

cafele cups of coffee

Neuter

Neuter nouns have two forms in the plural.

Those ending in -ou , form the plural by adding -uri :

birou desk

birouri desks

Those ending in -iu , replace with -ii :

fotoliu armchair

fotolii armchairs

Lesson 5: Articles

In English, the indefinite articles (a, an, some) AND the definite article (the) precede the noun to
which they refer. However, in Romanian, the indefinite articles come BEFORE the noun and
definite articles come AFTER the noun, as a suffix.
That is, unless the planets are aligned or all road construction is finished, but we all know how
rare those are.

Indefinite Articles

un "a, an" for masculine and neuter singular

nouns

o "a, an" for feminine singular nouns

nişte some

Este un om acolo. There is a man over there.

Ai un prieten în România? Do you have a friend in Romania?
Cumpăr o carte bună. I am buying a good book.

Мультиязыковой проект Ильи Франка www.franklang.ru 8

 9
Cunosc o fată în Franţa. I know a girl in France.
Nişte copii sînt în faţa şcolii. Some kids are in front of the school.

Definite Articles

If the word ends in a consonant, add -ul:

om man

omul the man

oameni men

oamenii the men

If ending in -ă, substitute -a:

fată girl

fata the girl

fete girls

fetele the girls

If ending in -ea, add -ua:

cafea coffee

cafeaua the coffee

cafele cups of coffee

cafelele the cups of coffee

If ending in -ie, substitute -ia

Мультиязыковой проект Ильи Франка www.franklang.ru 9

 10

călătorie voyage

călătoria the voyage

călătorii voyages

călătoriile the voyages

If ending in -u, add -l:

metrou metro

metroul the metro

metrouri metros

metrourile the metros

If a MASCULINE word ends in -e, add -le:

cîine dog

cîinele the dog

cîini dogs

cîinii the dogs

If a FEMININE word ends in -e, add -a:

minge ball

mingea the ball

mingi balls

Мультиязыковой проект Ильи Франка www.franklang.ru 10

 11

mingile the balls

Examples:

Brânza e foarte veche. The cheese is very old.

Dă-i mingea! Give him the ball!
Steaua albastră e frumoasă. The blue star is beautiful.

NOTES:

There are some instances where the definite article would not be used in English but MUST be
used in Romanian.

1. When speaking about something in a general sense:

Mâncarea românească este foarte delicioasă. Romanian food is very delicious. (Speaking
about Romanian food in general)
Nu-mi place berea. I don't like beer. (Speaking of beer in general)

2. When showing possession:

Prietenul meu vine mîine dimineaţă. My friend is coming tomorrow morning.
Dani are ceasul tău. Danny has your watch.

Words in this Lesson

om man

prieten friend

fată girl

copii children, kids

în faţă in front

brânză cheese

foarte very

veche old (for objects)

stea star

albastră blue (f)

frumoasă beautiful (f)

mâncare food

Мультиязыковой проект Ильи Франка www.franklang.ru 11

 12

bere beer

mîine tomorrow

dimineaţă morning

ceas watch

Lesson 6: Subjunctive

In other languages if one wanted to say "I want to go" or "He needs to buy", the infinitive form
of the second verb would be used (i.e. "to go" or "to buy"). To say these phrases in Romanian the
speaker must use a form called the subjunctive. Speakers caught not using the subjunctive are
usually dragged into the street and beaten with clubs (ciomege).

Examples of the subjunctive:

Trebuie să mergem la Bucureşti. We have to go to Bucharest.
Nu pot să vorbesc ungureşte. I cannot speak Hungarian.

As you can see, the subjunctive is  "să + present tense". Just as with the normal present tense, the
subjunctive is conjugated so personal pronouns are unnecessary.
 

Trebuie să merg I have to go

Trebuie să mergi
Trebuie să meargă
Trebuie să mergem
Trebuie să mergeţi
Trebuie să meargă
You have to go
He/She has to go
We have to go
You (pl) have to go
They have to go

("Trebuie" is like the French "il faut", meaning "it is necessary").

 

You may notice that the 3rd person form (meargă) is a bit different than the normal 3rd person
present tense (merge). This change in the 3rd person form will be common when forming the
subjunctive, but everything else stays the same.

The rules for this change in the 3rd person are fairly simple. Here are the rules and some
examples using "merge", "întreba", and "vorbi"; meaning "to go", "to ask", and "to speak",
respectively.
 

Change Condition Example

e -> ea middle of word merge -> meargă
e -> ă end of word merge -> meargă
ă -> e end of word întreabă -> întrebe

Мультиязыковой проект Ильи Франка www.franklang.ru 12

 13

ea -> e middle of word întreabă -> întrebe

eşte -> ească end of word vorbeşte -> vorbească

Constructions using the subjunctive are usually started with "putea", "vrea", and "trebui". Here
are some example sentences containing the subjunctive.

Pot să scriu foarte bine. I can write very well.

Nu poţi să citeşti prea bine. You cannot read too well.

Trebuie să vorbim cu el. We need to speak with him.

Trebuie să vorbească cu noi. He/She must speak with us.
Nu trebuie să plecăm mîine. We don't need to leave tomorrow.
El trebuie să plece în seara asta. He needs to leave tonight.*
Ea trebuie să plece mîine seară. She needs to leave tomorrow night.*
 * The personal pronoun is used here to avoid ambiguity, as "să plece" can imply "he", "she" or "they".

Vreau să merg la Oradea. I want to go to Oradea.

Vreau să mergi la Oradea. I want you to go to Oradea.
Vrem să mergeţi la Oradea. We want you all to go to Oradea.

Lesson 7: Future

    The future tense in Romanian can be constructed in three different ways, or avoided like the
plague/potholes/Al Gore for those of us with lesser linguistic abilities. If you would still like to
use it, the constructions are:
1. present tense + time expression
2. 'o' + subjunctive
3. conjugation of "voi" + verb infinitive
Confused? Don't worry, we don't expect you to understand yet! Just keep reading....

1. Present Tense + Time Expression

Here is an example of what we're talking about.

Mergem la Salonta mîine dimineaţă. We're going to Salonta tomorrow morning.
Prietenul meu vine din munţi poimîine. My friend is coming from the mountains the day
after tomorrow.

You can see that the verbs (in bold face) are conjugated in the present tense, but the time
expressions that follow imply the future tense. Here are some more time expressions that can be
used:
 
 

mîine tomorrow
poimîine day after tomorrow

Мультиязыковой проект Ильи Франка www.franklang.ru 13

 14

răspoimîine 3 days after today

mîine dimineaţă tomorrow morning
acuma seara tonight
săptămâna viitoare next week
luna viitoare next month
anul viitor next year
mîine seară tomorrow evening
seara asta tonight, this evening

2. 'O' + Subjunctive

Another way to form the future is by combining 'o' and the subjunctive. For example:
O să bem apă minerală la casa lui Victor. We will drink mineral water at Victor's house.
O să vezi tu însuţi cînd vine.    You will see for yourself when he comes.
Nu ştim dacă o să vină şi ea.   We don't know if she's coming too.

3. Conjugation of "Voi" plus verb infinitive

The third way to form the future is by using "voi", a form of the verb meaning "to want"(much
like english "I will do this").
Below  you will find the conjugation of "voi" needed for the future tense:
 
 

eu voi
tu vei
el, ea va
noi vom
voi veţi
ei vor

The verb infinitive for "to see" is "a vedea". The 'a' before the word is like the 'to' in english
verb infinitves ("to see"). The 'a' may be ignored for now, all we need is voi + vedea. See the
examples below.

Voi vedea filmul poimîine.  I will see the movie the day after tomorrow.
Nelu va vedea luna plină.  Nelu will see the full moon.
Va veni şi Marta. Marta will come too.
Nelu şi Lidia vor fi la biserică astăzi. Nelu and Lidia will be at church today.

Мультиязыковой проект Ильи Франка www.franklang.ru 14

 15
Words in this Lesson

biserică church

lună moon

film movie

apă minerală mineral water

munţi mountains

prieten friend (male)

 
Lesson 8: Past Tense
There are about four different ways of forming the past tense in Romanian. In this lesson we will
cover two kinds of past tenses called the "compound past" and the "simple past". We will also
review some time expression often used in conjunction with the past.

The compound past is usually used to describe an action that happened only once:
I ate dinner at Raul's house last night.
We went to a movie.

The compound past is formed by a conjugated form of "to have" plus the past participle of the
verb. The shortened form of "to have" as used for past tenses follows:

eu am I've

tu ai you've

el / ea a he's / she's

noi am we've

voi aţi you've

ei / ele au they've

The past participle is formed from the infinitive of the verb following a few fairly simple rules. It
might be easier at first to simply memorize the past participles of the more commonly used verbs
(note: past participles can also be used as adjectives! -more on that later).

For starters, let's look at the past tense of a face meaning "to do" or "to make":

The past participle of face is făcut. You would use this in conjunction with the shortened form
of a avea to form the past. Confused? Just look at the examples!
am făcut = I made
ai făcut = you made
a făcut = he/she made
Мультиязыковой проект Ильи Франка www.franklang.ru 15
 16
am făcut = we made
aţi făcut = you made
au făcut = they made

You may notice the past tense for eu and noi is exactly the same: am făcut. You can use the
personal pronouns to stress who is the doer of the action.
Eu am făcut. I did.
Noi am făcut. We did.

Here are some examples of basic verbs and their past participles:

Infinitive Past Participle Definition

face făcut make / do

vorbi vorbit speak

merge mers go

da dat give

mînca mîncat eat

primi primit receive

bea băut drink

veni venit come

spune spus say

avea avut have

fi fost be

Here are some simple rules to follow to divine the past participle. There are a number of
exceptions to the rules however, so a list of common irregular verbs will follow.

Rules for Past Participles

 add a 't' to verbs ending in 'i' or 'a'
 subtract last two letters of verbs ending in 'e', then add an 's'

Examples:

"a alege" = "to choose"

alege -> ales -> ales

"a zice" = "to say"

zice -> zis -> zis

Мультиязыковой проект Ильи Франка www.franklang.ru 16

 17

"a alerga" = "to run"

alergat -> alergat

"a şopti" = "to whisper"

şoptit -> şoptit

To negate a past tense you add a 'nu' in front of the 'avea' helping verb. This often gets shortened
to 'n-'.
Nu am băut -> N-am băut I did not drink
Nu ai venit -> N-ai venit You did not come

One more thing you should know about Romanian negation is that they love double-negatives!
We only say that in dialect in English so I have fun doing it in Romanian. Words you will need
to form double negatives are:
nimeni nobody
nicăieri nowhere
niciodată never
nimic nothing

I do not expect this to make a whole lot of sense without a small sea of example sentences, so
below you will find exactly that...

Aţi venit ieri? Did you all come yesterday?

Pisicile au mîncat şoarecii. The cats ate the mice.
Noi n-am văzut nimic! We didn't see anything!
Ea niciodată n-a auzit nimic. She never heard anything.
Ieri am primit o scrisoare de la el. I got a letter from him yesterday
Au mers pînă la vamă. They went up to the border.
Am vorbit toata ziua. We talked the whole day.
N-au spus nimic despre ţiganii. They didn't say anything about the gypsies.
Maşina n-a fost nicăieri. The car wasn't anywhere.

AND now for the simple past!

The simple past is used to denote an action that happened more than once or over a period of
time. Examples in English would be "We were writing each other everyday" or "I went to the
library on Sundays". It is constructed by adding a suffix* to the end of the verb infinitive. The
suffixes used are as follows:

Person Suffix

eu -am

tu -ai

el / ea -a

Мультиязыковой проект Ильи Франка www.franklang.ru 17

 18

noi -am

voi -aţi

ei / ele -au

*If the infinitive ends in an i, change the i to an e when adding the suffixes.
Example using a vorbi (to speak): Ea vorbea cu noi. She was speaking with us.

These suffixes look familiar? They should! They are the same as the forms of 'to have' used in
the compound past. Below you will see examples of some verbs with this suffix added:

merge "go"
singular plural

eu mergeam noi mergeam

tu mergeai voi mergeaţi

el mergea ei mergeau

avea "have"
singular plural

eu aveam noi aveam

tu aveai voi aveaţi

el avea ei aveau

fi (irregular) "be"
singular plural

eu eram noi eram

tu erai voi eraţi

el era ei erau

You may have noticed that with avea the letter 'a' is not doubled: avea + am = aveam. This is
true for all verbs ending in a.
To negate just put a nu before the verb and shorten to n- if the verb begins with an 'a'. Below are
some examples.

N-aveam cărţi. We didn't have books.

Nu mergeau la bisercă.They did not go to church.
Dimineaţă mîncam salata de ardei. I used to eat pepper salad in the morning.
Primeai scrisori de la ea? Were you getting letters from her?
Nimeni nu vorbea cu mine. Nobody would talk with me.

Мультиязыковой проект Ильи Франка www.franklang.ru 18

 19

Lesson 9: Reflexive Verbs

As in probably all european languages, Romanian has reflexive verbs. In this lesson, you will
learn how reflexive verbs are constructed in Romanian and we'll start you off with some of the
most important ones you'll need to know.

Following is a list of the forms for the personal pronouns as used in reflexive verbs.

Pronoun Reflexive

eu mă

tu te

el se

ea se

noi ne

voi vă

ei se

ele se

The following are 5 of the most commonly used reflexive verbs:

a se uita (la) to look (at)

mă uit ne uităm

te uiţi vă uitaţi

se uită se uit

a se spăla to wash oneself

mă spăl ne spălăm

te speli vă spălaţi

se spală se spală

Мультиязыковой проект Ильи Франка www.franklang.ru 19

 20

a se trezi to get up / wake up

mă trezesc ne trezim

te trezeşti vă treziţi

se trezeşte se trezesc

a se întoarce to go back / return

mă întorc ne întoarcem

te întorci vă întoarceţi

se întoarce se întorc

a se duce to go

mă duc ne ducem

te duci vă duceţi

se duce se duc

Mă spăl pe dinţi. I'm brushing my teeth.

El se duce la piscină. He's going to the pool.
Ne trezim la opt dimineaţă. We're getting up at eight in the morning.
Ea se întoarce în Ungaria. She's returning to Hungary.
La ce vă uitaţi? What are you looking at?
Mă duc la bisercă. I'm going to church.
Te speli? Do you wash?
Se duc la şcoală să se uită la noua clădire. They're going to the school to see the new
building.
Vă întoarceţi răspoimîine? Are you coming back three days from now?
O să te uiţi la televizor? Are you going to watch television?
Te vei duce la criş acuma seară? Are you going to the river tonight?
O să se trezească după mine. He will get up after me.
Trebuie să se ducă şi Daniel. Daniel has to go too.
Lesson 10: Possessive

Мультиязыковой проект Ильи Франка www.franklang.ru 20

 21

And now for something that should have appeared several lessons ago, we present THE
POSSESSIVE! If you are using your Romanian, I'm sure you have needed to say "my car" or
"my house" by now.

There are three ways to denote possession. You will like two of them. The third...well, let's not
talk about that till we have to.

Overview:*
1. Possessive Adjective
2. The "AL" Construction
3. Dative Genitive

*These terms were mostly created by us just to make us sound like real linguists. Don't be confused!

1. Possessive Adjectives
The easiest and perhaps the most familiar form of possession corresponds to 'my', 'your', 'his',
etc.

English Masculine Singular Masculine Plural Feminine Singular Feminine Plural

my meu mei mea mele

your tău tăi ta tale

his/her său săi sa sale

his lui lui lui lui

her ei ei ei ei

our nostru noştri noastră noastre

y'all's vostru voştri voastră voastre

your (formal) dumneavoastră dumneavoastră dumneavoastră dumneavoastră

Remember that words of neutral gender behave like masculine nouns in the singular and like
feminine nouns in the plural. Note also that the thing that is owned MUST be in the definite
form:
The nominative of "dog" is "cîine". The definite for masculine nouns ending in e is "-le" thus
"the dog" would be "cîinele". The word is masculine so you use the masculine singular from the
chart above: "meu". The possessive adjective follows the noun: "my dog" = "cîinele meu".

For the definite form of "maşină" (car) you would change the ă into an a: "the car" = "maşina".
Then just add the corresponding possessive adjective from the chart above: "maşina mea"(my
car). The neuter word Hotel would take the masculine possessive adjective in the singular:
"Hotelul meu"(my hotel) and the feminine plural in the plural: "Hotelurile mele". This is of
course much simpler for "his", "her", or "their" because "lui", "ei" and "lor" do not change for
plural or gender.

Example Sentences:

Мультиязыковой проект Ильи Франка www.franklang.ru 21

 22
Ceasul meu e stricat. My watch is broken.
Unde e maşina ta? Where is your car?
Aceştia nu sînt pantalonii mei. These are not my pants.
Dă-mi banii tăi, cheile tale, şi portofelul tău! Give me your money, keys and wallet!
Casa noastră e mai mare decît casa voastră. Our house is bigger than your house.

"A Friend of Mine"

Sometimes, just for the heck of it, you might want to say something like: "A friend of mine".
This especially comes in handy since the word prietenă (friend) could mean 'girlfriend' in the
right (or wrong!) context. But saying 'a friend of mine' always means "just a friend". The same,
of course, is true for prieten meaning 'boyfriend'.

To say this in Romanian, you can say de for 'of' :

A friend of mine.

O prietenă de a mea

An alternate usage is to leave out the "de":

Niste prieteni ai mei Some friends(masculine or mixed) of mine.

Niste prietene ale mele Some friends(feminine) of mine.
Niste scrisori ale lor Some letters of theirs.

You can add the de without change of meaning:

Nişte prieteni de ai mei Some friends(masculine or mixed) of mine.

Nişte prietene de ale mele Some friends(feminine) of mine.
Nişte scrisori de ale lor Some letters of theirs.

The third method of expressing ownership is to use the Dative/Genetiv case. This case, like the
definite article, is a suffix.

Gender Singular Plural

masculine -ui -lor

feminine -ei* -lor

*Often this ending is "-ii". We'll cover the important words that take this special ending.

The masculine dative/genetive suffix is added to the singular definite form of any masculine or
neuter word in the singular, and the feminine suffix is added to the plural indefinite of feminine
words.
The following chart shows three typical feminine words in the singular Dative/Genetive:

Мультиязыковой проект Ильи Франка www.franklang.ru 22

 23

Nominative/Accusative Plural Dative/Genetive

fată fete fetei

decleraţie decleraţii decleraţiei

casă case casei

The following chart shows three masculine words and one neuter word in the singular
Dative/Genetive:

Nominative/Accusative Definite Dative/Genetive

bărtbat bărbatul bărbatului

cîine cîinele cîinelui

om omul omului

hotel* hotelul hotelului

*"Hotel" is neuter but remember that neuter words act masculine in the singular.

For any word in the plural regardless of gender you add "-lor" to the plural indefinite form.

Singular Plural Dative/Genetive

băiat băieţi băieţilor

om oameni oamenilor

familie familii familiilor

fată fete fetelor

hotel hoteluri hotelurilor

And now to cover those pesky "-ii" words. Unfortunately there is no solid rule, you'll just have to
learn which words take it. One great help is that ALL words ending in "-tate" change to "-tăţii",
and words ending in "-are" change to "-ării".
Examples:
stare -> stării (state of being)
facultate -> facultăţii (university)
omenire -> omenirii (humanity)

Other important words that take the -ii suffix:

maşină -> maşinii (car)

biserică -> bisericii (church)

Мультиязыковой проект Ильи Франка www.franklang.ru 23

 24
limbă -> limbii (tongue, language)
ţară -> ţării

IMPORTANT GRAMMAR NOTE: Adjectives can also take the dative/genitive endings!

Don't forget that objects owned must be definite! And now for some example sentences! (yey!)

Maşina bunului meu prieten. The car of my good friend.

Prinţul păcii. The prince of peace.
Cauciucul maşinii albastre*. The blue car's tire.
Păstorul bisericii noastre*. The pastor of our church.
Casa tatălui meu. My father's house.
Toate cuvintele ale limbi Române*. All the words of the Romanian language.
A fost rucsacul soţului meu. That was my husband's backpack.

*REMEMBER that to get the Dative/genetive form of feminine words you must build off of the
plural form, even when the word is in the singular. Keeping that in mind, adjectives following
singular feminine nouns take plural endings:

Fata frumoasă = The beautiful girl

Fete frumoase = Beautiful girls
Fetei frumoase = of/to the beautiful girl
Fetelor frumoase = of/to the beautiful girls

One last note: When using the Dative/Genetive form of people's names you use the word "lui"
(i.e. not the suffix) for men's names and the regular suffix for feminine names:

Casa lui Florin. Florin's house.

Fiul lui Emil. Florin's son.

Casa Magdalenei. Magdalena's house.

Fiul Mariei. Maria's son.

For simplicity's sake, in the spoken language it is very common to hear people use "lui" with
female names as well as men's names. This is especially true for foriegn women's names that
don't end in an "a" anyways:

Casa lui Ingrid.

Fiul lui Maria.

If you want to say 'mine', 'yours', or 'his' you must use the AL construction:

Male Female Neutral

singular al a al

plural ai ale ale

Мультиязыковой проект Ильи Франка www.franklang.ru 24

 25

GRAMMAR NOTE: Notice that words of neutral gender in the singular behave like masculine
words, but they behave like feminine words when in the plural. You will see this pattern often.

Now let me try and make sense of that graph for you! If the object owned is masculine and
singular, for example, you would use al instead of the object, followed by the corresponding
meu form.

For example:
prietenul meu (my friend) becomes al meu (mine)

This is why you need it: If you don't use it, you will sound like a robot, as has been avoided in
the following example sentences:
"My friend isn't here yet"
"Mine isn't either."
"Neither mine nor yours is here."
"Thank you captain obvious!"

In Romanian that would be:

"Prietenul meu încă nu este aici."

"Nici al meu."
"Nici al meu nici al tău nu este aici."
('nici' means 'nor' and is repeated before each noun)

HINT: try to think of al meu as just being the English word 'mine' although it is two words and
feels kind of strange.

Мультиязыковой проект Ильи Франка www.franklang.ru 25