The genitive is the case that answers "whose?" and translates the English "of" — cartea băiatului ("the boy's book / the book of the boy"), casa Mariei ("Maria's house"), ușa camerei ("the door of the room"). The single most important thing to grasp is that Romanian does not use a preposition for this. Where English has two strategies — the apostrophe-s (the boy's book) and the of-phrase (the book of the boy) — Romanian has exactly one: it inflects the possessor. The possessor noun changes its ending, and that ending alone carries the meaning "of."
The possessed comes first, the possessor inflects
Romanian word order mirrors the of-phrase, not the apostrophe-s: the possessed thing comes first (with its definite article), and the possessor follows in the genitive. Think book-of-the-boy, not boy's-book.
Cartea băiatului e pe masă.
The boy's book is on the table.
Mașina vecinului face un zgomot ciudat dimineața.
The neighbor's car makes a strange noise in the morning.
Acoperișul casei s-a stricat în furtună.
The roof of the house got damaged in the storm.
Notice that the possessor already carries its own definite article fused into the genitive ending — băiatului, vecinului, casei all mean "of the boy / the neighbor / the house." There is no separate "the" floating around.
Masculine and neuter: add -lui
For masculine and neuter nouns, the genitive (singular) is formed from the definite form by replacing the final article with -lui. In practice: omul → omului, băiatul → băiatului, profesorul → profesorului, trenul → trenului (neuter). The base never changes; you simply swap the article ending for -lui.
| Nominative (definite) | Genitive | Meaning of the genitive |
|---|---|---|
| omul | omului | of the man |
| băiatul | băiatului | of the boy |
| profesorul | profesorului | of the teacher |
| câinele | câinelui | of the dog |
| trenul (neuter) | trenului | of the train |
Părerea profesorului contează cel mai mult aici.
The teacher's opinion matters the most here.
Coada câinelui se mișca întruna de bucurie.
The dog's tail wagged nonstop with joy.
Feminine: -ei or -ii (built on the plural)
Feminine nouns are the famous complication. The feminine genitive singular is identical to the plural stem plus an article, which is why it looks so different from the nominative: fată → (plural fete) → fetei; casă → (plural case) → casei; carte → (plural cărți) → cărții; floare → (plural flori) → florii.
| Nominative | Plural | Genitive (= plural stem + article) | Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|
| fata | fete | fetei | of the girl |
| casa | case | casei | of the house |
| cartea | cărți | cărții | of the book |
| floarea | flori | florii | of the flower |
The practical rule of thumb: a feminine noun whose plural ends in -e takes genitive -ei (case → casei); a feminine noun whose plural ends in -i takes genitive -ii (cărți → cărții, flori → florii). Because this depends on the plural, you genuinely cannot form the feminine genitive without first knowing the plural — a dependency we unpack in full on the feminine gen-dat page.
Părinții fetei locuiesc tot în satul ăla.
The girl's parents still live in that village.
Coperta cărții s-a îndoit în rucsac.
The book's cover got bent in the backpack.
Parfumul florii se simțea din capătul grădinii.
The flower's scent could be smelled from the far end of the garden.
Proper names: lui for masculine, -ei for feminine
Personal names need their own treatment. Masculine names (and most foreign names of either gender) do not inflect — instead you put the invariable particle lui in front: mașina lui Ion ("Ion's car"), câinele lui Andrei ("Andrei's dog"). Feminine Romanian names usually inflect like ordinary feminine nouns: Maria → Mariei, Ana → Anei.
Mașina lui Ion e parcată în fața blocului.
Ion's car is parked in front of the building.
Telefonul Mariei a sunat în timpul ședinței.
Maria's phone rang during the meeting.
Părerea lui Andrei m-a convins până la urmă.
Andrei's opinion convinced me in the end.
When the link breaks: the genitival article al/a/ai/ale
So far the possessor has sat directly after a noun carrying its own definite article (cartea băiatului). But when the possessed noun is indefinite, or when something separates it from the possessor, Romanian inserts a linking word — the genitival article al, a, ai, ale — which agrees in gender and number with the possessed thing, not the possessor.
Un prieten al băiatului mi-a povestit totul.
A friend of the boy's told me everything.
O carte a Mariei a rămas pe bancă.
A book of Maria's was left on the bench.
Doi colegi ai profesorului au venit la conferință.
Two colleagues of the teacher's came to the conference.
Here al (masc. sg., agreeing with prieten), a (fem. sg., agreeing with carte), and ai (masc. pl., agreeing with colegi) signal "belonging to." The possessor itself stays in the genitive (băiatului, Mariei, profesorului). This is one of Romanian's trickiest agreement systems and gets a dedicated page.
The genitive ≠ a preposition
For an English speaker the most damaging instinct is to reach for a connecting word. Because of and 's are how English does this, learners try to translate of with de — producing cartea de profesor. This is wrong: de exists in Romanian but means something else (material, type: o casă de lemn, "a wooden house"). The genitive relation carries no preposition at all.
Numele orașului îmi scapă acum.
The name of the city escapes me right now.
Culoarea pereților e mai închisă decât credeam.
The color of the walls is darker than I thought.
Common Mistakes
❌ cartea de profesor
Incorrect — the genitive uses no preposition; 'de' here would wrongly mean 'a teacher-type book.'
✅ cartea profesorului
the teacher's book / the book of the teacher
❌ mașina de Ion
Incorrect — masculine proper names take 'lui', never 'de'.
✅ mașina lui Ion
Ion's car
❌ casa fatei
Incorrect — the feminine genitive is built on the plural stem (fete), giving fetei, not *fatei.
✅ casa fetei
the girl's house
❌ băiatului cartea (= the boy's book)
Incorrect order — the possessed noun comes first, the possessor follows: cartea băiatului.
✅ cartea băiatului
the boy's book
❌ Maria's telefon / telefon-ul Maria
Incorrect — there is no 's, and the possessor must inflect: Mariei.
✅ telefonul Mariei
Maria's phone
Key Takeaways
- Romanian builds "of"/possession by inflecting the possessor, never by a preposition — suppress of and de, and change the noun's ending.
- The possessed comes first (with its article), the possessor follows in the genitive.
- Masculine/neuter add -lui (omului); feminine add -ei/-ii built on the plural stem (fetei, cărții).
- Masculine proper names use lui (mașina lui Ion); feminine names inflect (Mariei).
- The genitive and the dative share one and the same form — see the syncretism page.
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Start learning Romanian→Related Topics
- The Dative (indirect object, 'to')B1 — The dative marks the recipient or beneficiary of an action ('to/for someone') using the same form as the genitive — with obligatory clitic doubling and a set of verbs whose government you learn one by one.
- Genitive-Dative SyncretismB1 — Why Romanian's genitive and dative are a single form — fetei means both 'the girl's' and 'to the girl' — and how syntax, not morphology, tells you which case you're looking at.
- Genitive-Dative of Feminine NounsB1 — The feminine genitive-dative singular is built on the PLURAL stem, not the singular — fată→fete→fetei, carte→cărți→cărții — so you must know the plural before you can form it.
- Prepositions Governing the GenitiveB2 — A class of spatial and relational prepositions — deasupra, în fața, în jurul, împotriva, de-a lungul — require the genitive, while datorită/grație/mulțumită take the dative; how to recognize and use them.
- The Genitival Article (al, a, ai, ale)B1 — The distinctively Romanian genitival article al/a/ai/ale links a possessed noun to its possessor when the two aren't glued together by a definite article — un prieten al meu, o carte a Mariei, prietenii mei și ai tăi. It agrees with the POSSESSED noun, and surfaces when an indefinite, an intervening word, or a standalone possessive breaks the default adjacency.
- Articles with Names and the Genitive luiA2 — How Romanian marks possession and the genitive on names — feminine names take a suffixed ending (Maria → Mariei) while masculine names use the invariable proclitic lui in front (cartea lui Ion), Romanian's only preposed article.