Telling a Romanian doctor what hurts forces you into one of the most un-English structures in the language. You do not say "my throat hurts." You say Mă doare gâtul — literally "me hurts the throat," with you as the object of the pain and the body part wearing a definite article instead of a possessive. Get this structure under your fingers and a whole class of Romanian sentences — about pain, pleasure, hunger, and feelings — suddenly clicks into place.
This page presents a complete doctor's-visit dialogue in the polite register, then unpacks it line by line: the possessive-dative of symptoms (including the trap of plural agreement in Mă dor ochii), body-part vocabulary, the dumneavoastră you'll hear from any clinician, durations with de, and the conditional Ar trebui să used to recommend treatment.
The dialogue
A patient (P) sees a doctor (D) at a clinic. Neither knows the other, so both stay in the polite dumneavoastră register throughout.
— Bună ziua! Luați loc, vă rog. Ce vă supără?
— Good day! Have a seat, please. What's bothering you? (lit. 'what bothers you?')
— Bună ziua, doamnă doctor. Mă doare capul de două zile și am și febră.
— Good day, Doctor. My head has been hurting for two days and I also have a fever.
— Vă dor și ochii? Vă curge nasul?
— Do your eyes hurt too? Is your nose running? (lit. 'does the nose run to you?')
— Da, mă dor ochii și mă doare gâtul când înghit.
— Yes, my eyes hurt and my throat hurts when I swallow.
— Înțeleg. Vă deranjează dacă vă consult puțin? Respirați adânc.
— I see. Do you mind if I examine you a bit? Breathe deeply.
— Deloc. De ieri mă simt foarte obosit.
— Not at all. Since yesterday I've been feeling very tired.
— Aveți o viroză. Ar trebui să stați în casă câteva zile și să beți multe lichide.
— You have a viral infection. You should stay home for a few days and drink lots of fluids.
— Trebuie să iau antibiotice?
— Do I need to take antibiotics?
— Nu, nu vă recomand antibiotice acum. Vă dau o rețetă pentru durerea de cap. Dacă febra nu scade, reveniți.
— No, I don't recommend antibiotics now. I'll give you a prescription for the headache. If the fever doesn't go down, come back.
Line by line
Ce vă supără? — what's bothering you
The opening question is idiomatic. A supăra literally means "to upset, to bother," but Ce vă supără? is the standard, slightly gentle way a doctor asks what's wrong — comparable to "What seems to be the trouble?" The blunter variants are Ce vă doare? ("What hurts you?") and Care e problema? ("What's the problem?"). Note vă: the dative/accusative clitic of the polite dumneavoastră, used here as the object that is being bothered.
Ce vă supără, domnule Ionescu?
What's bothering you, Mr. Ionescu? (polite)
Spuneți-mi, ce vă doare mai exact?
Tell me, what exactly hurts you? (polite)
Mă doare capul — the possessive-dative of pain
This is the heart of the page. To say a body part hurts, Romanian uses a durea ("to hurt") as a verb that acts on you: the person in pain is the object (a clitic pronoun), and the body part is the grammatical subject, carrying the definite article, not a possessive.
So Mă doare capul parses as "[it] hurts me the-head" → "my head hurts." The pronoun mă is the person; capul (cap + the article -ul) is the subject. There is no word for "my" anywhere — the dative pronoun already tells you whose head it is.
| Romanian | Literal | Idiomatic |
|---|---|---|
| Mă doare capul. | "me hurts the-head" | My head hurts. |
| Mă doare gâtul. | "me hurts the-throat" | My throat hurts. |
| Mă doare stomacul. | "me hurts the-stomach" | My stomach hurts. |
| Mă doare o măsea. | "me hurts a tooth" | I have a toothache. |
Mă doare capul de azi-dimineață.
My head has been hurting since this morning.
Pe el îl doare spatele de când a ridicat lada aceea.
His back has hurt ever since he lifted that crate.
The clitic changes with the sufferer, not the doctor: mă doare (mine), te doare (yours, casual), îl/o doare (his/hers), vă doare (yours, polite or plural), ne doare (ours).
Mă dor ochii — the plural-agreement trap
Here is where learners stumble. Because the body part is the grammatical subject, the verb agrees with it in number. One body part takes singular doare; two or more take the plural dor:
Mă doare piciorul.
My leg/foot hurts. (one leg)
Mă dor picioarele.
My legs/feet hurt. (both)
Mă dor ochii de la calculator.
My eyes hurt from the computer.
Mă dor toate oasele.
All my bones ache.
So "my eyes hurt" cannot be mă doare ochii — ochii is plural, so the verb must be plural: mă dor ochii. English hides this because "hurt" looks the same in singular and plural ("it hurts" / "they hurt"), but Romanian shows it openly.
| Singular body part | Plural body part |
|---|---|
| Mă doare urechea. | Mă dor urechile. |
| Mă doare mâna. | Mă dor mâinile. |
| Mă doare dintele. | Mă dor dinții. |
De două zile — durations with "de"
When you say how long a symptom has lasted, Romanian uses de + a time span: de două zile ("for two days"), de o săptămână ("for a week"), de ieri ("since yesterday"), de azi-dimineață ("since this morning"). Crucially, this combines with the present tense, not a past tense as in English: Mă doare capul de două zile is literally "my head hurts since two days" — the pain is still going on, so Romanian keeps the present.
Tușesc de trei zile și nu-mi trece.
I've been coughing for three days and it won't go away.
De o săptămână mă doare genunchiul.
My knee has been hurting for a week.
De ieri am amețeli.
I've had dizziness since yesterday.
Ar trebui să / Vă recomand să — recommendations
A doctor's advice leans on the conditional for softness. Ar trebui să ("you should," literally "it would be necessary that") is the gentle recommendation; the bare Trebuie să ("you must / you have to") is firmer obligation. Both are followed by the subjunctive (the să + present forms): Ar trebui să stați... și să beți.... Note that stați and beți are 2nd-person plural to match the polite dumneavoastră.
Ar trebui să vă odihniți mai mult.
You should rest more.
Trebuie să luați pastila de două ori pe zi.
You have to take the pill twice a day.
Vă recomand să faceți niște analize.
I recommend you get some tests done.
The contrast matters: Ar trebui să gives advice you can take or leave; Trebuie să states a real requirement. The patient's own Trebuie să iau antibiotice? ("Do I have to take antibiotics?") asks about genuine necessity, and the doctor answers about it directly. For the full picture see the conditional of politeness and a trebui.
Vă curge nasul / Mă simt obosit — other symptom frames
Two more frames round out the medical vocabulary. A curge ("to flow, run") describes a running nose with the same possessive-dative shape: Vă curge nasul = "the nose runs to you." And a se simți ("to feel") takes an adjective that agrees with the speaker: Mă simt obosit (male) / obosită (female) — "I feel tired."
Îmi curge nasul și strănut întruna.
My nose is running and I keep sneezing.
Mă simt obosită și am frisoane.
I feel tired and I have chills. (female speaker)
Nu mă simt bine deloc, am amețeli.
I don't feel well at all, I'm dizzy.
Body-part vocabulary
A quick reference for the parts that come up most at the doctor's, with the definite-article form you'll actually use in mă doare _:
| Body part |
| English |
|---|---|---|
| cap | capul | head |
| gât | gâtul | throat / neck |
| stomac | stomacul | stomach |
| spate | spatele | back |
| piept | pieptul | chest |
| ureche → urechi | urechea / urechile | ear / ears |
| ochi (sg = pl) | ochiul / ochii | eye / eyes |
| picior → picioare | piciorul / picioarele | leg(foot) / legs |
| măsea → măsele | măseaua / măselele | (back) tooth / teeth |
Common Mistakes
Using a possessive instead of the definite article — the classic English transfer:
❌ Capul meu mă doare.
Unnatural — Romanian doesn't use 'my head'; the dative pronoun carries possession: Mă doare capul.
✅ Mă doare capul.
My head hurts.
Forgetting the plural verb when the body part is plural:
❌ Mă doare ochii.
Wrong — ochii is plural, so the verb must agree: Mă dor ochii.
✅ Mă dor ochii.
My eyes hurt.
Dropping the person-clitic, as if "hurts" were a plain verb:
❌ Doare capul.
Incomplete — whose head? You need the clitic: Mă doare capul.
✅ Mă doare capul.
My head hurts.
Using a past tense for a still-ongoing symptom with de:
❌ M-a durut capul de două zile.
Wrong — that means the pain is over; for ongoing pain use the present: Mă doare capul de două zile.
✅ Mă doare capul de două zile.
My head has been hurting for two days.
Mixing the casual and polite "you" when talking to a clinician:
❌ Te doare gâtul? (to your doctor)
Too casual for a clinic — use the polite form: Vă doare gâtul?
✅ Vă doare gâtul?
Does your throat hurt? (polite)
Key Takeaways
- Symptoms use the possessive-dative: Mă doare capul = "me hurts the-head." The body part wears the definite article, never a possessive.
- The verb agrees with the body part (the subject): singular doare, plural dor — Mă dor ochii, Mă dor picioarele.
- The person is a clitic: mă / te / îl / o / vă / ne doare. Don't drop it.
- Durations use de + time + present tense: Mă doare de două zile (not a past tense).
- Advice softens with the conditional Ar trebui să
- subjunctive; Trebuie să is firmer. Clinic register is dumneavoastră throughout.
Now practice Romanian
Reading grammar gets you part of the way. The exercises are where it sticks — free, no signup needed.
Start learning Romanian→Related Topics
- Dative Experiencer Verbs (a-i plăcea, a-i conveni)B1 — The Romanian 'gustar-type' verbs where the person is a dative clitic and the thing experienced is the grammatical subject that controls verb agreement — a-i plăcea, a-i păsa, a-i lipsi and friends.
- a plăcea — to be pleasing (to like)A1 — Full conjugation of the second-conjugation verb a plăcea, the dative-experiencer verb behind îmi place, where the thing liked is the grammatical subject and controls agreement — Romanian's gustar.
- Mistake: Saying 'I am hungry / cold' with a fi + adjectiveA2 — English speakers say *Sunt foame* and Romance speakers say *Am foame* — both are wrong. Romanian sensations use a DATIVE clitic + a fi + a NOUN: Mi-e foame ('to-me is hunger'). Store them as fixed dative chunks.
- The Conditional for PolitenessA2 — The high-frequency polite formulas built on the conditional — aș vrea, aș dori, ați putea, mi-ar plăcea — that beginners need early for requests in restaurants, shops, and service situations.
- a trebui (must / have to)A2 — The invariable modal trebuie for obligation and probability, the past a trebuit să, and the high-value imperfect trebuia să for 'should have / was supposed to'.
- The Politeness System (T/V) in UseB1 — When Romanians actually choose tu (intimacy, equality) versus dumneavoastră (distance, respect), who is allowed to propose the switch to tu, why dumneavoastră is the safe default with anyone unfamiliar or senior, and where the fading middle form dumneata fits — the social logic behind a choice English speakers don't have to make.