Money and work talk is where a language gets earthy and inventive, and Romanian is no exception. The expressions on this page run from the perfectly transparent (a face bani, "to make money") to the wonderfully opaque (a trage mâța de coadă, literally "to pull the cat by the tail," meaning to be scraping by). The danger is the same one that haunts all idiom learning: the more vivid the image, the less the literal words help you. You cannot decode a munci pe brânci by translating brânci; you have to learn the whole chunk and the situation it belongs to. This page groups the most useful money-and-work expressions by what they actually mean, flags the literal image where it's misleading, and labels the register of each — because some are neutral enough for a job interview and others belong strictly to the kitchen table.
Earning and getting by
a face bani — literally "to make money," and it means exactly that: to earn well, to turn a profit. This one transfers cleanly from English, which is rare enough to be worth noticing. Register: neutral, usable in conversation and in business contexts alike.
A renunțat la slujbă și acum face bani din vânzări online.
He quit his job and now makes money from online sales.
a-și câștiga existența / a-și câștiga pâinea — "to earn one's living," literally "to earn one's existence" (or, in the folksier variant, "one's bread"). This is the dignified, slightly elevated way to talk about supporting yourself. Note the reflexive -și (dative "for oneself"): the living you earn is yours. Register: a-și câștiga existența is neutral to formal; a-și câștiga pâinea is (informal / folksy) and carries a whiff of honest, modest labor.
Își câștigă existența ca traducător, lucrând de acasă.
She earns her living as a translator, working from home.
Muncește din greu ca să-și câștige pâinea, ca toată lumea.
He works hard to earn his bread, like everyone else.
Being broke
Romanian has a small arsenal for "having no money," and they sit at different registers, so picking the right one matters.
a fi lefter — "to be broke," flat out of cash. The word lefter comes from Greek eléftheros ("free") by way of Ottoman-era slang — "free of money," ironically. It is squarely (informal / colloquial) and very common in everyday speech.
Nu pot să vin în weekend, sunt complet lefter până la salariu.
I can't come this weekend, I'm completely broke until payday.
a fi falit — "to be broke / bankrupt." Falit is the participle of a da faliment and is a notch more serious or dramatic than lefter: it leans toward genuine financial ruin, though in casual exaggeration people also use it for "I have no money right now." Register: neutral, slightly stronger than lefter.
După ce i-a dat firma faliment, a rămas falit și plin de datorii.
After his company went bankrupt, he was left broke and deep in debt.
a trage mâța de coadă — literally "to pull the cat by the tail," and this is the gem of the group: it means to be hard up, to scrape by, to live hand to mouth. There is no cat anywhere near the meaning — the image is one of pointless, desperate, fruitless effort (a person so poor they're reduced to absurd shifts to get by). Do not try to reconstruct it from the words; it is fully opaque. Register: (informal / colloquial), often a bit self-deprecating or humorous.
De când s-a scumpit totul, tragem mâța de coadă de la o lună la alta.
Since everything got more expensive, we've been scraping by from one month to the next.
Nu-și permite vacanță — abia trage mâța de coadă.
He can't afford a holiday — he's barely getting by.
Going under
a da faliment — "to go bankrupt," said of a business or, by extension, a person. Literally "to give bankruptcy," using the light verb a da ("to give") — a classic Romanian light-verb construction where a da carries almost no meaning of its own and the noun does the work. Register: neutral to formal; this is the standard term in business and news.
Multe magazine mici au dat faliment în timpul pandemiei.
Many small shops went bankrupt during the pandemic.
Dacă nu găsim investitori, riscăm să dăm faliment până la sfârșitul anului.
If we don't find investors, we risk going bankrupt by the end of the year.
Working hard
a munci pe brânci — literally "to work on one's chest" (brânci here is an old word for the chest/ribs, related to crawling on all fours), meaning to work flat out, to work oneself to the bone, to toil. The image is of someone hunched over and crawling under their workload. Fully opaque — brânci is not a word you'll meet much outside this idiom. Register: (informal), expressive and emphatic.
Au muncit pe brânci toată vara ca să termine casa înainte de iarnă.
They worked themselves to the bone all summer to finish the house before winter.
a munci din greu — "to work hard," the plain, transparent version (literally "to work from heavy/hard"). Use this when you just mean hard work without the dramatic colour of pe brânci. Register: neutral.
Muncește din greu, dar își iubește meseria.
She works hard, but she loves her job.
Two everyday work formulas
These two are not idioms about money so much as the social glue of working life — fixed formulas you'll hear daily.
Spor la treabă! — literally "increase/yield to the work!", and it is the everyday work-wish: you say it to someone who is working or about to start, meaning roughly "may your work go well / get a lot done / good luck with it." Crucially, English has no real equivalent — "good luck with that" is too ironic, "happy working" doesn't exist. It's a warm, genuine little blessing on someone's labor, said by a colleague leaving the office, a passerby to a workman, or a boss to the team. Spor on its own means "yield, productivity, progress." Register: neutral / friendly, extremely common.
Eu am plecat, voi mai rămâneți? Spor la treabă!
I'm off — you're staying on? Have a productive one!
— Mă apuc de curățenie. — Spor la treabă!
— I'm getting started on the cleaning. — Good luck with it / get lots done!
a-și vedea de treabă — literally "to see to one's own work," with two closely related senses: (1) to mind one's own business, not meddle, and (2) to get on with one's own work / not be distracted. Context tells you which. Note again the reflexive dative -și ("one's own"). Register: (informal); in the "mind your own business" sense it can be curt or dismissive.
Nu te băga, vezi-ți de treabă!
Don't get involved, mind your own business!
Lasă bârfa și vezi-ți de treabă, că ai termen mâine.
Drop the gossip and get on with your work — you've got a deadline tomorrow.
A quick reference
| Expression | Literal image | Meaning | Register |
|---|---|---|---|
| a face bani | to make money | to earn well, turn a profit | neutral |
| a-și câștiga existența | to earn one's existence | to earn a living | neutral / formal |
| a fi lefter | "free (of money)" | to be broke | (informal) |
| a fi falit | to be bankrupt | to be broke / ruined | neutral |
| a da faliment | to give bankruptcy | to go bankrupt | neutral / formal |
| a trage mâța de coadă | pull the cat by the tail | to be hard up, scrape by | (informal) |
| a munci pe brânci | to work on one's chest | to work flat-out, toil | (informal) |
| Spor la treabă! | "yield to the work!" | may your work go well | neutral / friendly |
| a-și vedea de treabă | see to one's own work | mind your business / get on with it | (informal) |
Comparison with English
A handful of these map straight onto English — a face bani is "to make money," a da faliment is "to go bankrupt," a munci din greu is "to work hard." Take those gifts. The rest diverge in instructive ways. English "broke" splits in Romanian into the slangy lefter and the heavier falit — choosing wrongly sounds either too casual or too catastrophic. The two great opaque idioms, a trage mâța de coadă and a munci pe brânci, have English cousins in scrape by and work one's fingers to the bone, but the images are wholly Romanian and must be learned whole. And Spor la treabă! simply has no English slot at all: there is no everyday English thing you say to a person who is working. Reaching for "good luck" imports an irony the Romanian doesn't have. The lesson is the recurring one of Romanian phraseology — learn the situation, not the words.
Common Mistakes
Translating a trage mâța de coadă literally, or trying to rebuild it from English:
❌ a trage pisica de coadă (to mean 'be broke')
Not the idiom — the fixed form uses the older word mâța, not pisica, and the whole image is sealed: a trage mâța de coadă = 'to scrape by'. You can't paraphrase the animal.
✅ De la o lună la alta tragem mâța de coadă.
We scrape by from one month to the next.
Dropping the reflexive clitic in a-și câștiga existența:
❌ Câștigă existența ca profesor.
Incorrect — the dative clitic is obligatory: the 'whose living' is built into -și. Say își câștigă existența.
✅ Își câștigă existența ca profesor.
He earns his living as a teacher.
Confusing lefter (slang, temporary) with falit (serious, ruin) — or treating Spor la treabă! as ironic:
❌ Firma noastră merge prost, suntem cam lefteri.
Register mismatch — for a company in financial trouble you want falit / a da faliment; lefter is personal slang for 'out of cash right now'.
✅ Firma noastră a dat faliment anul trecut.
Our company went bankrupt last year.
Building a progressive ("I am working hard") instead of using the plain present, and forcing an English-style article:
❌ Sunt muncind pe brânci. / Fac un bani buni.
Two errors — Romanian has no 'to be + -ing' progressive (use the plain present), and bani ('money') takes no indefinite article here.
✅ Muncesc pe brânci și fac bani buni.
I'm working flat-out and making good money.
Key Takeaways
- The money-and-work expressions split into transparent collocations you can almost build (a face bani, a da faliment, a-și câștiga existența) and opaque idioms you must learn whole (a trage mâța de coadă, a munci pe brânci).
- "Broke" is two words: lefter (slang, temporary, out of cash) vs falit (serious, ruined) — pick by severity and register.
- a-și câștiga existența and a-și vedea de treabă carry an obligatory reflexive clitic (-și) that encodes "one's own"; don't drop it.
- Spor la treabă! is the everyday work-wish with no English equivalent — a genuine, friendly blessing on someone's labor, part of a family of spor-wishes.
- As always with idioms: learn the situation and the whole chunk, never reason word-by-word from English.
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