A collocation is a partnership between words that the language has settled on by convention — not by logic. In Romanian, every common abstract noun has a "right" verb it goes with, and that verb is fixed: you take a decision (a lua o decizie), pose a question (a pune o întrebare), make a mistake (a face o greșeală), give advice (a da un sfat). Swap in a different verb and the sentence becomes grammatically intact but unmistakably foreign — a face o decizie is the kind of error a Romanian ear catches instantly. Because the pairing rarely matches English, the only reliable method is to learn the verb and noun together as a single unit, the way you'd learn a phrasal verb. This page collects the highest-frequency pairings so you can over-learn the right partner for each noun.
The core inventory
The table below pairs each frequent noun with its conventional verb and flags where English would push you toward the wrong one. Read it as a list of vocabulary items, not as a set of rules.
| Collocation | Meaning | English trap |
|---|---|---|
| a lua o decizie | to make a decision | not a face ("make") |
| a lua o hotărâre | to reach a decision | not a face |
| a pune o întrebare | to ask a question | not a face |
| a face o greșeală | to make a mistake | matches English here |
| a da un sfat | to give a piece of advice | matches English |
| a da un răspuns | to give an answer | matches English |
| a avea grijă (de) | to take care (of), be careful | not a lua ("take") |
| a avea dreptate | to be right | "have rightness", not a fi |
| a ține minte | to remember, keep in mind | "hold mind", not a ține alone |
| a băga de seamă | to notice, take heed | idiom; not parseable |
| a face un efort | to make an effort | matches English |
| a-și face griji | to worry | reflexive; "make oneself worries" |
| a trage o concluzie | to draw a conclusion | a trage = "to pull/draw" |
| a depune un efort / o plângere | to put in effort / file a complaint | (formal) |
Decision, question, answer
The cluster around mental and verbal acts is where English transfer does the most damage, because English uses make and ask where Romanian uses take and put.
Nu pot să iau o decizie atât de importantă peste noapte.
I can't make such an important decision overnight.
Pot să vă pun o întrebare înainte să începem?
May I ask you a question before we begin?
Mi-a dat un sfat bun: să nu semnez nimic fără avocat.
She gave me good advice: not to sign anything without a lawyer.
Note that a da un sfat and a da un răspuns line up neatly with English give advice / give an answer — so not every pairing fights you. The trick is knowing which ones do.
Care, worry, and being right
Romanian leans heavily on a avea ("to have") for states that English expresses with to be — a avea dreptate ("to be right", literally "to have rightness") and a avea grijă ("to take care", literally "to have care"). And it uses the reflexive a-și face griji for "to worry".
Ai grijă pe scări, sunt alunecoase după ploaie.
Be careful on the stairs, they're slippery after the rain.
Recunosc că ai dreptate — n-ar fi trebuit să mă cert cu el.
I admit you're right — I shouldn't have argued with him.
Nu-ți face griji, ajung la timp la gară.
Don't worry, I'll get to the station on time.
Idiomatic pairings you can't parse
A few collocations have gone fully idiomatic — the noun no longer carries its everyday meaning, so you can't reconstruct the sense from the words. A ține minte ("to keep in mind / remember"), a băga de seamă ("to notice / take heed"), and a trage o concluzie ("to draw a conclusion") all fall here.
Ține minte ce-ți spun: nu te grăbi niciodată când semnezi un contract.
Remember what I tell you: never rush when signing a contract.
N-am băgat de seamă că plecase până nu s-a închis ușa.
I didn't notice she'd left until the door closed.
Din toate astea trag concluzia că nu merită efortul.
From all this I draw the conclusion that it isn't worth the effort.
Why the wrong verb sounds so wrong
When you say a face o decizie, every word is real Romanian and the grammar is flawless — yet a native speaker winces. That's because collocation is a layer of the language above grammar: it's the set of word-partnerships the community has agreed on through sheer repetition. Breaking a collocation doesn't break a rule; it breaks an expectation. The brain of a native listener has heard a lua o decizie thousands of times and a face o decizie zero times, so the latter registers as a glitch even when it's "understandable". This is why collocational accuracy is one of the last things to fall into place for advanced learners, and why getting it right is such a strong signal of fluency. The fix is not analysis but exposure: the more you encounter and reuse the correct pairing, the more a face o decizie will start to sound wrong to you too.
Common Mistakes
❌ Am făcut o decizie să mă mut la Cluj.
Incorrect — a decision is 'taken' in Romanian: a lua o decizie.
✅ Am luat decizia să mă mut la Cluj.
I made the decision to move to Cluj.
❌ Vreau să fac o întrebare.
Incorrect — a question is 'put/posed', not 'made': a pune o întrebare.
✅ Vreau să pun o întrebare.
I want to ask a question.
❌ Ia grijă de tine!
Incorrect — 'take care' uses a avea (to have), not a lua (to take): ai grijă.
✅ Ai grijă de tine!
Take care of yourself!
❌ Cred că ești drept — el a mințit.
Incorrect — 'to be right' is a avea dreptate ('to have rightness'), not a fi + adjective.
✅ Cred că ai dreptate — el a mințit.
I think you're right — he lied.
❌ Nu te face griji, mă descurc.
Incorrect — 'to worry' is the reflexive a-și face griji: nu-ți face griji.
✅ Nu-ți face griji, mă descurc.
Don't worry, I'll manage.
Key Takeaways
- Each abstract noun has a fixed partner verb, set by convention: a lua o decizie, a pune o întrebare, a face o greșeală, a da un sfat.
- The verb rarely matches English — take a decision, put a question — so learn the verb + noun as one unit.
- Romanian uses a avea for states English makes with to be: a avea dreptate (be right), a avea grijă (take care).
- Fully idiomatic pairings can't be parsed: a ține minte (remember), a băga de seamă (notice), a trage o concluzie (draw a conclusion).
- The wrong verb breaks an expectation, not a rule — which is why it sounds so jarring and why exposure, not analysis, fixes it.
Now practice Romanian
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Start learning Romanian→Related Topics
- Light-Verb Collocations (a face, a da, a lua, a pune)B1 — Romanian builds dozens of everyday actions from four 'light' verbs — a face, a da, a lua, a pune — that carry almost no meaning of their own (a face baie, a da telefon, a lua masa, a pune întrebări). The right light verb is fixed per expression and rarely matches English, so learn each combination as a single unit.
- Fixed Prepositional PhrasesB1 — Frozen adverbial expressions built on prepositions — de obicei, din când în când, pe de rost, în zadar, din greșeală, cu noaptea-n cap — that function as single adverbs and cannot be parsed word by word. They are vocabulary, not grammar, and must be memorized whole with their exact preposition and word order.
- a da — to giveA1 — Full conjugation of the irregular monosyllabic verb a da (to give), with its diphthong forms, the doubled-d imperfect dădeam, and dozens of idiomatic uses.
- a lua — to takeA1 — Full conjugation of a lua (to take), the classic two-stem irregular verb that alternates between the strong stem ia- and the stem lu- across its present paradigm.
- a face — to do, to makeA1 — Full conjugation of the very high-frequency irregular verb a face (to do, to make), with its participle făcut and the dozens of everyday collocations it forms.