Place adverbs answer the question unde? ("where?"). Romanian's set is richer than English here-and-there in one important way: alongside the static pair aici / acolo ("here" / "there") it keeps a separate directional pair, încoace / încolo ("this way" / "that way"), for motion toward or away from the speaker. English long ago lost its hither/thither/hence/whence system; Romanian still uses its version every day. Getting the static-vs-directional split right is what separates a textbook sentence from a natural one.
As with all Romanian adverbs, these forms never inflect — no gender, no number, no agreement. The only grammatical complication is the negative nicăieri ("nowhere"), which, like every negative word, forces nu onto the verb.
Static place adverbs (where something is)
These name a location without implying movement. They cluster into intuitive pairs.
| Romanian | English |
|---|---|
| aici / aci | here |
| acolo | there |
| sus | up, upstairs |
| jos | down, downstairs |
| înăuntru / înlăuntru | inside |
| afară | outside |
| aproape | near, nearby |
| departe | far |
| undeva | somewhere |
| oriunde / pretutindeni | anywhere / everywhere |
| peste tot | everywhere, all over |
| nicăieri | nowhere |
Lasă cheile aici, pe masă.
Leave the keys here, on the table.
Mașina e jos, în parcare.
The car is downstairs, in the parking lot.
Stai afară un minut, vin imediat.
Wait outside a minute, I'm coming right away.
A note on aproape and departe: as place adverbs they stand alone (Stai departe! — "Stand back / far away!"). To say "near to something" you add the preposition de: aproape de casă ("near the house"), departe de aici ("far from here"). Watch out — aproape also doubles as a degree adverb meaning "almost" (aproape gata, "almost ready"), a sense covered on the degree-adverbs page.
Locuiesc aproape de centru, pot merge pe jos.
I live near the center, I can walk.
Directional place adverbs (motion this way / that way)
Here is where Romanian outpaces English. When something moves toward the speaker or away from them, Romanian prefers the dedicated directional forms încoace ("this way, hither") and încolo ("that way, thither"). You also meet înainte ("forward, ahead"), înapoi ("back, backward"), and împrejur / în jur ("around").
| Static (where) | Directional (which way) |
|---|---|
| aici (here) | încoace (this way, toward me) |
| acolo (there) | încolo (that way, away from me) |
| sus (up there) | în sus (upward) |
| jos (down there) | în jos (downward) |
Vino încoace, vreau să-ți arăt ceva.
Come over here (this way), I want to show you something.
Du-te mai încolo, te rog, blochezi ușa.
Move over that way a bit, please, you're blocking the door.
Mașinile circulă în sus pe deal, spre mănăstire.
The cars drive up the hill, toward the monastery.
Încolo also has an extended, very common idiomatic use in și așa mai departe ("and so on") territory: mai încolo can mean "later / further on" in time, and de aici încolo means "from here on." Context tells you whether it's space or sequence.
De aici încolo, ne descurcăm singuri, mulțumim.
From here on, we'll manage on our own, thanks.
The negative: nicăieri (nowhere)
Nicăieri is the negative place adverb, and it behaves exactly like its siblings niciodată ("never") and nimic ("nothing"): it requires nu on the verb. This is Romanian negative concord — not a stylistic double negative but the only grammatical option.
Nu-mi găsesc ochelarii nicăieri.
I can't find my glasses anywhere.
Nu e nicăieri prin casă, am căutat peste tot.
It's nowhere in the house, I've looked everywhere.
N-am fost nicăieri toată ziua, am stat acasă.
I haven't been anywhere all day, I stayed home.
The English translation switches between "nowhere" and "anywhere" depending on the surrounding words, but Romanian uses the same nu … nicăieri frame for both. There is no positive counterpart you can swap in: you cannot drop the nu and keep nicăieri. If the sentence is positive ("somewhere"), you must change the adverb itself to undeva.
Cheile trebuie să fie undeva pe-aici.
The keys must be somewhere around here.
Common Mistakes
English speakers drop the verbal nu with nicăieri, because "nowhere/anywhere" already feels negative:
❌ Găsesc nicăieri telefonul.
Incorrect — nicăieri requires nu on the verb.
✅ Nu găsesc nicăieri telefonul.
I can't find the phone anywhere.
They use the static aici for motion toward the speaker, where Romanian wants încoace:
❌ Vino aici repede! (for 'come this way')
Understandable but flat — for motion toward you, încoace is more natural.
✅ Vino încoace repede!
Come over here quickly!
They forget the preposition de when "near" or "far" takes an object:
❌ Stau aproape centru.
Incorrect — aproape needs de before a place: aproape de centru.
✅ Stau aproape de centru.
I live near the center.
They confuse the two senses of aproape (place "nearby" vs. degree "almost"):
❌ Sunt aproape de gata.
Incorrect — 'almost ready' is the degree sense: aproape gata, no de.
✅ Sunt aproape gata, mai am puțin.
I'm almost ready, just a little more.
They translate "everywhere" with a single word and pick the wrong one:
❌ Am căutat oriunde.
Off — oriunde is 'anywhere (you like).' For 'everywhere I looked' use peste tot.
✅ Am căutat peste tot.
I looked everywhere.
Key Takeaways
- Static location uses aici/acolo, sus/jos, înăuntru/afară, aproape/departe; "near/far to" adds de.
- Motion from the speaker's viewpoint prefers the directional pair încoace (this way) / încolo (that way) — a distinction English no longer marks.
- The negative nicăieri ("nowhere/anywhere") obligatorily co-occurs with verbal nu, exactly like niciodată and nimic; the positive counterpart is the separate word undeva.
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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.
- Adverbs of Time (acum, ieri, mereu, deja, încă)A1 — Romanian time adverbs — deictic (acum, ieri, mâine), frequency (mereu, des, niciodată), and aspectual (deja, încă, mai, abia) — including how încă and mai carry the still/yet aspect English splits in two.
- 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).
- Negative Concord (Double Negation)A1 — Romanian piles up negatives that all agree, and the verbal nu is non-negotiable. Where English uses one negative ('I never tell anyone anything'), Romanian marks every element negative AND keeps nu on the verb: Nu spun nimănui niciodată nimic. What English calls a 'double-negative error' is the REQUIRED form here. This page teaches the system and how the negatives stack.
- The Particle 'nici' (not even, neither, nor)B1 — nici is the negative twin of the focus particle și ('even, too'): it covers 'not even' (Nici nu m-a salutat), the correlative 'neither … nor' (nici … nici), and 'me neither' (Nici eu). Whenever nici sits on an argument, the verb still needs nu (Nu vine nici Ion). This page maps all of its jobs and where it sits.
- Subject-Verb InversionB1 — In Romanian the subject often follows the verb — and with arrival/existence verbs (A venit Maria; S-a întâmplat ceva; Au rămas două) and after a fronted adverb (Ieri a sunat Ion; Aici locuiește bunica) the verb-subject order is NEUTRAL, not 'inverted for effect'. It also marks focus on the subject (A plătit Ion, nu eu) and is common in questions. The reason: Romanian packages new-information subjects after the verb, whereas English clings to subject-first and uses 'there'-insertion or stress instead.