Adverbs of manner answer how an action is performed — beautifully, badly, quickly, in a friendly way. Romanian draws them from three sources. Most are simply the bare masculine-singular adjective pressed into adverbial service (frumos, clar, greu). A small set are suppletive — a different word entirely, headed by bine ("well," from bun) and rău ("badly"). And one genuine suffix, -ește, productively builds "in-the-manner-of" adverbs (românește "in Romanian," prietenește "in a friendly way," orbește "blindly"). That suffix is Romanian's only real adverb-formant, and it has no clean English counterpart — recognizing it as "in the X manner" is the key insight of this page.
Type 1: the bare adjective
The productive default. Take the adjective's masculine-singular form and use it, unchanged, after the verb. It does not agree with anything (see adverbs overview).
Desenează frumos pentru vârsta lui.
He draws beautifully for his age. (frumos)
Explică foarte clar, toți înțeleg.
She explains very clearly, everyone understands. (clar)
Înțeleg greu glumele în română.
I understand jokes in Romanian with difficulty. (greu = 'with difficulty', adverbial)
Te-ai descurcat excelent la examen.
You did excellently on the exam. (excelent)
Because the adverb is the masc.sg adjective, the same spoken word may be either part of speech; only context (what it modifies) tells you which. Un cântec frumos ("a beautiful song," adjective, agreeing) vs cântă frumos ("sings beautifully," adverb, frozen). When the modified noun is feminine or plural, the difference becomes visible: the adjective changes (o melodie frumoasă), the adverb does not (cântă frumos).
Type 2: the suppletive bine (and its partner rău)
Romanian, like English (good → well), supplies an irregular adverb for the most common evaluative adjective. The adjective is bun ("good"); the manner adverb is bine ("well") — a completely different word. This bun → bine switch is the only genuinely suppletive manner adverb; its evaluative partner rău ("bad/badly"), as you'll see below, is not suppletive at all.
Gătește foarte bine, mai ales pește.
He cooks very well, especially fish. (bine — not *bun)
Dacă te simți bine, putem ieși.
If you feel well, we can go out.
The trap is that bun and bine are both extremely frequent, so learners reach for the adjective by reflex. The rule is mechanical: describing a noun → bun (and its agreeing forms bună, buni, bune); describing a verb / state → bine.
| Modifying a noun (adjective) | Modifying a verb (adverb) |
|---|---|
| un vin bun (a good wine) | merge bine (it goes well) |
| o idee bună (a good idea) | cântă bine (sings well) |
| note bune (good grades) | se simte bine (feels well) |
The counterpart rău ("bad / badly") is partly the opposite of bine, but here is a subtlety: rău serves as both the adjective ("bad," with agreeing forms rea, răi, rele) and the manner adverb ("badly"). So rău does not split the way bun/bine does — the same form rău can be adjectival or adverbial:
Un om rău nu se schimbă ușor.
A bad person doesn't change easily. (rău = adjective 'bad')
Am dormit rău, m-a durut spatele.
I slept badly, my back hurt. (rău = adverb 'badly')
Note also the everyday near-synonym prost: as an adjective it means "stupid," but adverbially it means "poorly / badly" (merge prost "it's going badly"). Mind the register — prost applied to a person ("stupid") is rude, while merge prost ("going poorly") is neutral.
Type 3: the productive -ește suffix
This is the one place Romanian has a real, living adverb-forming suffix. -ește attaches to a noun or adjective stem and means "in the manner / way of". Its two most productive zones are languages and characteristic behavior.
Languages — "speak X" is vorbi + [language]ește, literally "speak X-ly":
Vorbește românește mai bine decât mine.
He speaks Romanian better than I do. (românește, lit. 'speaks Romanian-ly')
Înțelegi nemțește?
Do you understand German? (nemțește — 'in German')
La piață te poți descurca și ungurește.
At the market you can get by in Hungarian too. (ungurește)
These language adverbs (românește, franțuzește, nemțește, ungurește, rusește, țigănește) are slightly more colloquial and idiomatic than the plain în română ("in Romanian"); both are correct — vorbește românește and vorbește în română are interchangeable, with the -ește form feeling a touch more native and folksy.
Manner / behavior — "in the way characteristic of X":
Se poartă copilărește, deși are patruzeci de ani.
He behaves childishly, even though he's forty. (copilărește, from copil 'child')
M-a tratat prietenește, ca pe un vechi cunoscut.
He treated me in a friendly way, like an old acquaintance. (prietenește, from prieten 'friend')
A acceptat orbește tot ce i s-a spus.
He accepted blindly everything he was told. (orbește, from orb 'blind')
The English mind has no single morpheme for this — we paraphrase with "in a … way," "in the manner of a …," or scattered -ly forms (childishly, blindly). The Romanian -ește packs all of it into one ending. Train yourself to decode any new -ește word as "in the X manner": bărbătește = "in a manly way," frățește = "in a brotherly way / as brothers," hoțește = "stealthily / like a thief," mârâind câinește = "snarling like a dog."
Position: manner adverbs follow the verb
The neutral spot for a manner adverb is right after the verb (or after the verb + object). This is the order to default to; fronting is possible for emphasis but marked (see adverb position).
Cântă bine la pian.
He plays the piano well. (adverb bine right after the verb)
A condus prudent toată noaptea.
She drove carefully all night.
Vorbește încet, te rog, dorm copiii.
Speak quietly, please, the kids are asleep. (încet 'slowly/quietly' after the verb)
In a compound tense, the adverb usually follows the whole verb form (auxiliary + participle): a condus prudent, not a prudent condus.
Comparing manner adverbs
Manner adverbs form comparatives and superlatives just like adjectives, with mai ("more") and cel mai ("the most") — covered fully under comparing adverbs:
Aleargă mai repede decât fratele lui.
He runs faster than his brother.
Dintre toți, ea gătește cel mai bine.
Of everyone, she cooks the best. (cel mai bine — best)
Common Mistakes
The classic bun/bine slip — using the adjective where the manner adverb is needed:
❌ Vorbește bun englezește.
Incorrect — 'speaks well' is the adverb bine: vorbește bine.
✅ Vorbește bine englezește.
He/She speaks English well.
Don't make the bare-adjective manner adverb agree with the subject:
❌ Ele desenează frumoase.
Incorrect — as a manner adverb it's invariable: frumos.
✅ Ele desenează frumos.
They (fem.) draw beautifully.
Don't paraphrase an -ește adverb into an agreeing adjective — românește is an adverb, not an adjective:
❌ Vorbește română limba.
Garbled — use the adverb românește or the phrase în română: vorbește românește.
✅ Vorbește românește.
He/She speaks Romanian.
Don't confuse adjectival prost ("stupid") with adverbial prost ("badly") — and watch the register:
❌ Mașina merge prostă.
Incorrect — adverbially it's the invariable prost: merge prost ('runs badly').
✅ Mașina merge prost.
The car runs badly.
Key Takeaways
- Three sources of manner adverbs: the bare masc.sg adjective (frumos, clar, greu), the suppletive bine (with its partner rău, which is not suppletive), and the -ește suffix.
- bun → bine ("good → well") is suppletive and must switch words; rău does double duty as both adjective and adverb.
- -ește = "in the X manner," productive for languages (românește, nemțește) and behavior (prietenește, copilărește, orbește); no single-word English equivalent.
- Manner adverbs sit after the verb and are invariable; they compare with mai / cel mai like adjectives.
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Start learning Romanian→Related Topics
- Romanian Adverbs: An OverviewA1 — A survey of Romanian adverb types — manner, time, place, degree, sentence adverbs — and the central fact that most manner adverbs are simply the bare masculine-singular adjective, with no '-ly' suffix.
- From Adjective to AdverbA2 — In Romanian the masculine-singular adjective doubles as the adverb of manner — there is no '-ly' suffix — so frumos is both 'beautiful' and 'beautifully', with bine/rău the notable suppletive adverbs.
- Adverb Position and Word OrderB1 — Where Romanian adverbs go — manner adverbs cling to the verb, time and place adverbs are mobile, degree adverbs precede their target, nu is strictly preverbal — and how fronting an adverb topicalizes it.
- Adverbs of Degree (foarte, prea, cam, tot mai)A2 — Romanian degree adverbs that intensify or soften — foarte (very), prea (too much), destul de (quite), the hedging cam (a bit, sort of), atât de (so), and tot mai (increasingly).
- Comparison of AdverbsB1 — How Romanian compares adverbs — analytic mai … decât, la fel de … ca, and cel mai — plus the suppletive set bine→mai bine, mult→mai mult, puțin→mai puțin, rău→mai rău.