Interrogative determiners are question-words that attach to a noun: Which train? What film? How many tickets? Romanian uses three — care ("which"), ce ("what / what kind"), and cât / câtă / câți / câte ("how much / how many") — and the choice among them is not arbitrary. Care selects from a known set and inflects; ce asks an open question and never changes shape; cât is the quantity-word and agrees with its noun. This page is about these words in their determiner role — sitting in front of a noun. When you need them as standalone pronouns ("Which do you want?" "What happened?"), see the decision guide on care vs ce vs cine.
care — "which," selection from a known set
Care asks you to pick one out of a defined set. When you say Care carte?, you are implying there is a known, limited group of books — these three on the table — and you want the listener to single one out. That "set" assumption is the heart of care.
Care tren pleacă primul?
Which train leaves first? (from the trains on the board)
Care culoare îți place mai mult, roșu sau albastru?
Which color do you like more, red or blue? (a set of two)
Because care points into a specific set, it behaves like a true determiner and inflects for case in the genitive-dative, where it becomes cărui (m. sg.) / cărei (f. sg.) / căror (pl.):
Cărui coleg i-ai dat dosarul?
To which colleague did you give the file? (dative → cărui)
In everyday speech care before a noun is somewhat formal; many speakers prefer ce in casual questions even when a set exists. But care is never wrong when a set is genuinely in play, and it is the precise choice in careful or written Romanian.
ce — "what / what kind of," open and invariable
Ce asks an open question — there is no assumed set, the answer could be anything. Ce carte citești? ("What book are you reading?") makes no presupposition about which books exist; you simply want to know its identity. Ce is invariable: one form for every gender, number, and case.
Ce film vrei să vedem diseară?
What film do you want us to watch tonight? (open — any film)
Ce muzică asculți de obicei?
What music do you usually listen to?
Ce fel de mâncare îți place?
What kind of food do you like? (ce fel de = 'what kind of')
The phrase ce fel de ("what kind of") is the explicit way to ask about type or category, and it is extremely common. Use it whenever English "what kind/sort of" would fit.
care vs ce: the deciding question
The whole care-vs-ce contrast reduces to one test: is there a known set to choose from?
| Situation | Use | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Known, limited set ("which of these") | care | Care carte? (of the three here) |
| Open identity, no set ("what") | ce | Ce carte citești? |
| Kind / category | ce (fel de) | Ce fel de carte? |
cât / câtă / câți / câte — "how much / how many"
Cât is the quantity-questioner, and unlike ce it agrees with its noun in gender and number — exactly like the quantifier mult. You pick the form by what you're counting or measuring:
| Form | Noun type | Meaning | Example |
|---|---|---|---|
| cât | masc./neut. mass | how much | Cât timp? (how much time) |
| câtă | feminine mass | how much | Câtă apă? (how much water) |
| câți | masculine plural | how many | Câți bani? (how much money — bani is plural) |
| câte | feminine/neuter plural | how many | Câte zile? (how many days) |
Câți bani îți trebuie pentru bilet?
How much money do you need for the ticket? (bani is grammatically plural → câți)
Câtă apă bei pe zi?
How much water do you drink a day? (feminine mass → câtă)
Câte zile mai sunt până la examen?
How many days are left until the exam?
Notice the bani example: "money" is countable and plural in Romanian (bani, the plural of ban), so it takes câți, the masculine plural — even though English "how much money" feels like a mass quantity. Let the Romanian noun's grammar decide the form, not the English translation.
Combining with prepositions
All three keep their determiner job after a preposition; care and cât then inflect as needed:
De câte ori ți-am spus?
How many times have I told you?
În ce oraș locuiești acum?
What city do you live in now?
Common Mistakes
The classic errors: using care for an open "what," using ce where a real set demands care (in careful Romanian), and freezing cât instead of agreeing it.
Don't use care when there's no set — that's an open "what," so use ce:
❌ Care film vrei să vezi?
Off — with no defined set this is open 'what film,' so ce film.
✅ Ce film vrei să vezi?
What film do you want to watch?
Don't freeze cât — it agrees with the noun:
❌ Cât apă ai băut?
Gender mismatch — apă is feminine, so câtă apă.
✅ Câtă apă ai băut?
How much water did you drink?
Don't translate "how much money" with câtă — bani is plural in Romanian:
❌ Câtă bani costă?
Incorrect — bani is masculine plural, so câți bani.
✅ Câți bani costă?
How much does it cost? (lit. how many monies)
Don't add an article to the noun after these determiners — they take a bare noun:
❌ Care trenul pleacă primul?
Incorrect — the interrogative takes a bare noun: care tren.
✅ Care tren pleacă primul?
Which train leaves first?
Key Takeaways
- care = "which," from a known set; it inflects (gen-dat cărui / cărei / căror).
- ce = "what / what kind," open identity, completely invariable; ce fel de = "what kind of."
- cât / câtă / câți / câte = "how much / how many," agreeing with the noun's gender and number.
- The care-vs-ce test is the known set: "which of these" → care; open "what" → ce.
- Match cât to the Romanian noun (câți bani, because bani is plural), not to the English feel.
- All three take a bare noun — no enclitic article.
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Start learning Romanian→Related Topics
- Determiners: An OverviewA1 — A map of the Romanian determiner system — demonstratives (acest/acel), possessives (meu/tău), the genitival article (al/a/ai/ale), indefinites (vreun, niște, fiecare), interrogatives (care, ce), and quantifiers (tot, mult, puțin). Romanian determiners inflect for gender, number, and sometimes case, and their position interacts with the enclitic article.
- care vs ce vs cineA2 — Choosing between Romanian care, ce, and cine — which/that, what, and who — including why care is the all-purpose relative pronoun even where English uses 'that'.
- Interrogative Pronouns (cine, ce, care, cât)A2 — The question words cine (who), ce (what), care (which one), and cât (how much/many) — and how Romanian splits English's caseless 'who' into a full case paradigm: Pe cine? (whom, accusative), Cui? (to whom, dative), Al cui? (whose, genitive).
- Quantifiers (mult, puțin, tot, câțiva)B1 — Romanian quantifiers — mult/puțin (much/little), destul (enough), tot (all), câțiva (a few), atât (so much) — with their agreement as determiners versus their invariable adverbial use, the trap that makes one word run on two grammars.
- Number-Noun Agreement and 'de'A2 — Only 1 and 2 inflect for gender in Romanian (un/o, doi/două) — but they keep agreeing even inside huge compounds (treizeci și două de cărți), and the neuter counts with the feminine form. This page also consolidates the 'de' threshold at twenty.
- Countability and Partitive ConstructionsB1 — How Romanian handles substances you can't count — mass nouns with niște and puțin (niște apă, puțin zahăr), the partitive measure + de + noun frame (un pahar de apă, un kilogram de mere, o sticlă de vin), and how pluralizing a mass noun shifts it to 'kinds of' (vinuri, brânzeturi).