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A0.4 Verbs "a fi" (to be) and "a avea" (to have) conjugated in Romanian

This lesson lists all the forms of the Romanian verbs "a fi" (to be) and "a avea" (to have), for all persons and numbers in the present tense.
At the end of this lesson you will be able to practice by answering a set or multiple choice questions on these two main Romanian verbs.

I,You,He,She,We,They in Romanian

English Romanian
translation
Audio Phonetic
Transcription

I

Eu

/jew/

You (referring to a single person)

Tu

/tu/

He

El

/jel/

She

Ea

/je̯a/

We

Noi

/noj/

You (where "you" refers to more than one person)

Voi

/voj/

You

formal and polite way of addressing one or several persons

Dumneavoastră

/dum.ne̯a'vo̯as.trə/

They  (where "they" refers to masculine gender nouns e.g. five men)

Ei

/jej/

They (where "they" refers to feminine gender nouns e.g. five women)

Ele

/'je.le/

2 Listening
3 Translate

How to conjugate the verb "to be" (a fi) in Romanian?

English Romanian
translation
Audio Phonetic
Transcription

to be

a fi

/a fi/

I am

Eu sunt

/jew sunt/

You are 

(where "you" refers to a single person)

Tu ești

/tu jeʃtʲ/

He is (long form)

Eeste

/jel 'jes.te/

He is (short form)

Ee

/jel je/

There is no difference in meaning or grammar rules between "El este" and "El e". "El este" is considered to be more formal than "El e".

She is

(long form)

Ea este

/je̯a 'jes.te/

She is (short form)

Ea e

/je̯a je/

There is no difference in meaning or grammar rules between "Ea este" and "Ea e". "Ea este" is considered to be more formal than "Ea e".

We are

Noi suntem

/noj 'sun.tem/

You are (where "you" refers to more than one person)

Voi sunteți

/voj 'sun.tet͡sʲ/

You are

Dumneavoastră is a formal and polite way of addressing one or several persons

Dumneavoastră sunteți

/dum.ne̯a'vo̯as.trə 'sun.tet͡sʲ/

They are (where "they" refers to masculine gender nouns e.g. five men)

Ei sunt

/jej sunt/

They are (where "they" refers to feminine gender nouns e.g. five women)

Ele sunt

/'je.le sunt/

2 Listening
3 Translate

How to conjugate the verb "a avea (to have)" in Romanian?

English Romanian
translation
Audio Phonetic
Transcription

to have

a avea

/a a've̯a/

I have

Eam

/jew am/

You have (where "you" refers to a single person)

Tu ai

/tu aj/

He has

Eare

/jel 'a.re/

She has

Eare

/je̯a 'a.re/

We have

Noi avem

/noj a'vem/

You have (where "you" refers to more than one person)

Voi aveți

/voj a'vet͡sʲ/

You have

Dumneavoastră is a formal and polite way of addressing one or several persons

Dumneavoastră aveți

/dum.ne̯a'vo̯as.trə a'vet͡sʲ/

They have (where "they" refers to masculine gender nouns e.g. five men)

Eau

/jej aw/

They have (where "they" refers to feminine gender nouns e.g. five women)

Ele au

/'je.le aw/

2 Listening
3 Translate

More Romanian verbs?

In the next level of Romanian lessons , Level A1: Elementary Romanian for beginners you can find the most common Romanian verbs. There you will find the translations of the verbs: "want", "can / may", "to do", "to give", "to take". Please be aware that that lesson is not part of this level (Absolute beginner), therefore if you would like to continue with this level please do not forget to navigate back here and continue with the next lesson of this level teaching you how to say that you speak little Romanian.

27 comments

Romanian

Nu eu vorbesc but I would like to

try its very nice language

Dear PATRECIA

its very nice language
I was like you but now better
I learn some
hope u try and vorbste romana

Sintem

Hi,

I've found in a book that I'm reading many times the verb to be in Romanian "sintem" and I can't find it in your list above, could you please add the missing form.

Thanks,
Ken

Old form of Romanian verb to be "sîntem"

Hi Ken,

You are right in saying that there seems to be two forms of the verb to be in Romanian.
The answer is that only one form is formally accepted and allowed by the Romanian grammar norms (as defined by the Romanian Academy), and that is the above form.

In spoken language, and especially among elder Romanians you will hear, or read in old books the older form of this verb. Only a few forms are different, the other are the same as the above. The different forms areȘ
Eu sînt
Noi sîntem
Voi sînteți
Ei/Ele sînt

Basically the newer (adopted in 1995) conjugation of the Romanian verb to be, replaced the "î" with "u".

In spoken language you will hear the old form as well which is generally accepted in the Romanian society(especially the pervious generation). However in schools since 1995 only the new form is used and as time passes by the old form will be most probably forgotten.

I hope this answers your question.

One is the above and the second one is:
Eu sînt

Thanks!

Thanks for this interesting and useful info!

SINTEM (we are..) is an old

SINTEM (we are..) is an old word and not used anymore. Now is SUNTEM (we are...)

Thank you

I am learning Romanian - this site was just the addition I needed!

XLNT, SPLENDID, GYÔ'YÖRU!

CAN YOU ADD HUNGARIAN TRANSLATIONS??
szrebbe fantastico ...
viszlát!

Hungarian - Romanian Translation

Hi,

Thank you.
I'd love to add Hungarian translations, however I do not speak Hungarian.
If someone would ever be interested and serious enough to translate it, I'd be more than happy to facilitate the addition of the translations.

Happy to help

Hi,

Hi,
Is there a lesson on here about the personal pronouns and the seasons with pronunciation ?
How do you say your age in Romanian ?

Thank you

How to pronounce the seasons in Romanian

Hi,

I have already researched the lesson on time, all materials are ready, I just did not have the time to write the lesson on time. Since you've asked for it, I have written fast a lesson on days of the week, months and seasons. Here it is:
Time weekdays in Romanian
I'll be finalizing it later on, including adding some nice pictures. For the moment I hope this would be useful to you.

The personal pronouns are all present in this lesson above (Eu, tu, el,ea,noi,voi,ei,ele, dumneavoastră). These are all(there are only a few other rarely used forms) the Romanian personal pronouns in the Nominative case.
I'll do my best to add tomorrow another lesson on the Personal Pronouns in the Nominative, Accusative, Dative and Genitive cases. (that's a complete lesson on personal pronouns).

In Romanian one would say:
[Eu] am douăzeci de ani - I'm twenty years old.

So basically we're using the verb "a avea" (to have) which is fully conjugated above, in this lesson, together with the pronunciation. For the numbers you have the two lessons on numbers, it's lesson A0.6 and A1.2 (Romanian courses)

For the pronunciation of the word "ani" you can check out the expression "La mulți ani" (Happy birthday) available at Common Romanian words

I hope this is answering your questions, if you need anything else just let me know.
Happy to help.

Personal pronouns in Romanian

Hi,

I've just managed to finalize the first lesson in a set of four on the Personal pronouns in Romanian. This lesson is about the Nominative case, the "it" pronoun and the politeness pronouns. As usual, all the Romanian words are accompanied by their pronunciation/audio.
Personal pronouns in Romanian

I'll do my best to finalize the other parts asap.

Happy to help

Thanks for this site!

This is one of the best sites ever for learning Romanian, thank you so much for your precious lessons of this which is certainly one of the most beautiful of all romance languages ever!

Thank you for your kind words

Thank you for your kind words. I'm happy that you like Romanian language as well as this website.
I'm doing my best to add more content, to expand the functionalities of the website...

I have recently added the revision lessons with different types of exercises: Revision Exercises Romanian

Happy to help!

Wow, thank you so much for this new link too!

Thank you so much for the link to the revision lessons with different types of exercises! That´s most kind of you!

Wonderful Site!

Hello!

I recently just moved to Timisoara w/ my family and this site has been nothing but helpful. I can understand/ speak basic Romanian now (thank you) and it's quite easy for me as I speak French and English fluently. Quite similar to each other, all three of those languages. Latin :)

I was wondering if you would be able at some point (later on) , to possibly add audio for the verbs above (a fi and a avea). It's a bit tedious, but I'm curious to know how they are properly pronounced.

Thanks a lot!

Romanian pronunciation of infinitives "to be" and "to have"

Hi,

Thank you for your kind words.
I had this planned some time ago, but I forgot to do it, so thank you for your question. As the recordings were done some time ago, I could add it quite fast. Just in case you did not notice, as you were saying that you speak French fluently, this site is translated in French (just click on the French flag on top of any page), as well as Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch and German.
I have added the infinitive forms in the exercises at the bottom of this page as well as in the Revision (at the end of the level).

Happy to help and I hope that you have settled in nicely in Timișoara.

Happy to help

Thank you

I appreciate it!

Thanks a lot for the exercises. :)

What a fabulous resource. Eu

What a fabulous resource. Eu am foarte puțin Română and this is so helpful :) merci frumos

Thank you very much

Hi Conan,

I'm happy you find it useful and you like the site. Indeed I'm doing my best to add more content and improve the features. If you find any issues, your feedback will be appreciated to allow me to correct them and make the site even better.

Mult succes la studiat!

❤️

It's very good

A Nice Site!

I've been studying this language on and off for a few years now and this site is one of the best resources I've found thus far for independent study! Multumesc pentru acest loc bun!

Learn Romanian online

Thank you Dustin, I appreciate it!

I'll be happy for one week now :)
This is exactly my purpose to provide free resources of high quality, rather than the typical sites that teach you 20 languages...

I'm trying to help people that want to learn Romanian together with showing them a bit of the Romanian culture.

Have a lovely day!

It is nice to learn proper

It is nice to learn proper forms of speaking Romanian but I will continue to use the old forms like "sîntem" and "sînt". And also "vîrsta" which is old form of "vârstă" meaning age. By the way, I have an old Romanian-English book, the same one my dad used to learn English.

Hi,

Hi,
I enjoyed your comment because the older generation uses "sîntem" and "sînt".
More than that my parents are still using the old Romanian currency the Romanian Leu ROL. In 2005 1$ = ~30 000 ROL, it is correct 30 thousands ROL. This is why many Romanians were millionaires at that time. Thus my parents are expressing the value of certain goods in millions.

In 2005 10 000 ROL were transformed into 1 RON (new Romanian leu).

For the old form "vîrsta" and "vârstă", the difference is just in writing. The pronunciation is the same.
Here is the specific lesson on pronouncing the Romanian "î" or "â"
https://www.learnro.com/romanian-vowels-pronunciation#i_

I was a bit tempted to add the "sîntem" form as a valid form while taking the exercises, but I think it's better to learn the new form.

Even more interesting if you want to go back to the history of Romanian spelling style actually before 1953 Romanian were writing "suntem" and "sunt", this is why in 1993 the Romanian Academy decided to go back to the rules of 1953. These rules are called the "Sextil Pușcariu” rules.

And to make matters even more complicated, some Romanians have names that are coming from the dictionary, for example the full name Alexandru Mîndru. In 1993 the spelling rules were adapted, but the last names like Mîndru written with the old spelling could not be changed, since it would have complicated a lot the lives of these Romanians. And even today you will find many cases where people have names spelled with "î" instead of "â".

Happy to help!

Dumneavoastră

Does the conjugation for dumneavoastră change when addressing one person versus addressing a group of persons? Or do the conjugations always maintain the voi (second person plural) form?

Dumneavoastră ești tatăl
Or
Dumneavoastră sunteți tatăl
?

Romanian word Dumneavoastră

Hi Jeffry,

It's a very good question. I was thinking of making a dedicated lesson for Dumneavoastră.

The conjugation is the same as for 'Voi". This is a general rule that applies to all Romanian verbs. Thus in your example this would be "Dumneavoastră sunteți tatăl".

Happy to help!

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