The Four Conjugation Classes | Romanian Grammar

Every Romanian verb belongs to one of four conjugation classes, and you can read a verb's class straight off its infinitive ending. This is not a dry filing system — the class tells you which set of present-tense endings the verb takes, so identifying it is the first move when you meet any new verb. This page lays out all four classes, gives you a model verb and its bare present stem for each, and flags the one thing competing resources tend to blur: class membership reliably predicts the present and the infinitive, but it does not predict the compound-perfect participle, which you still have to learn verb by verb.

The quick answer

Look at the infinitive ending:

Class	Ending	Model	1sg present	Notes
I	-a	a cânta (to sing)	cânt	largest, fully productive
II	-ea	a plăcea (to please)	plac	small, closed
III	-e	a face (to do/make)	fac	small, full of irregulars
IV	-i / -î	a citi (to read)	citesc	large, productive; splits into -esc and plain

The trickiest pair is II vs III: class II ends in the diphthong -ea, class III ends in a plain -e. A vedea (II) and a bate (III) differ only in that one vowel, and they conjugate differently. When you learn a class II or III verb, store the exact spelling of the infinitive in your memory, because the ending is the only signal.

Class I: verbs in -a

Class I is the largest and most productive class in the language. When Romanian borrows or coins a verb, it almost always lands here — which is why new technology verbs are class I.

A trebuit să dau clic de două ori ca să se deschidă.

I had to click twice for it to open.

Scanez documentul și ți-l trimit imediat.

I'll scan the document and send it to you right away.

Copiii desenează în curte toată după-amiaza.

The kids draw in the yard all afternoon.

Note that class I itself splits into two present-tense sub-patterns: plain verbs like a cânta (eu cânt, tu cânți) and verbs that take an -ez infix like a lucra (eu lucrez, tu lucrezi). Both are class I; the -ez sub-pattern is covered on its own present-tense page. Model verb a cânta, present stem cânt-.

Person	a cânta (plain)	a lucra (-ez infix)
eu	cânt	lucrez
tu	cânți	lucrezi
el/ea	cântă	lucrează
noi	cântăm	lucrăm
voi	cântați	lucrați
ei/ele	cântă	lucrează

Class II: verbs in -ea

Class II is small and closed — no new verbs ever join it — but its members are common. Think a vedea (to see), a plăcea (to please/like), a tăcea (to be silent), a putea (to be able), a cădea (to fall), a bea (to drink), a vrea (to want). Model verb a tăcea, present stem tac- (the ă of the infinitive stem tăc- opens to a in the 1sg: a tăcea → eu tac).

Îmi place foarte mult cum cânți.

I really like how you sing.

Taci puțin, te rog, vreau să aud.

Be quiet for a moment, please, I want to hear.

Nu putem veni diseară, ne pare rău.

We can't come tonight, we're sorry.

Because the class is closed and full of high-frequency verbs, the efficient strategy is simply to learn its members one by one — there aren't many, and you'll meet them constantly.

Class III: verbs in -e

Class III is also small, but it is the home of some of Romanian's most frequent and most irregular verbs: a face (to do/make), a merge (to go), a scrie (to write), a spune (to say), a duce (to carry), a trage (to pull), a coace (to bake), a rupe (to tear). The stress falls on the stem, not the ending, which is one quick way to feel the difference from class II. Model verb a merge, present stem merg-.

Scriu un mesaj și vin.

I'll write a message and then come.

Ce faci diseară?

What are you doing tonight?

Mergem cu toții la munte weekendul ăsta.

We're all going to the mountains this weekend.

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Class III is where you'll meet the most irregular participles. A face → participle făcut, a scrie → scris, a spune → spus, a merge → mers. The present tense is regular for the class, but the participles must be memorized — see the next section.

Class IV: verbs in -i and -î

Class IV is the second big productive class. It has two infinitive shapes: most end in -i (a citi, a dormi, a veni, a fugi), and a small set end in -î (a coborî "to descend", a urî "to hate", a hotărî "to decide"). More importantly, class IV splits into two present-tense sub-patterns, and getting this split right is the single biggest early win in Romanian conjugation.

The -esc / -ăsc infix

Many class IV verbs insert an infix in the singular and third-person plural of the present: -esc for -i verbs, -ăsc for the -î verbs. Compare:

Person	a citi (-esc infix)	a dormi (plain)	a hotărî (-ăsc infix)
eu	citesc	dorm	hotărăsc
tu	citești	dormi	hotărăști
el/ea	citește	doarme	hotărăște
noi	citim	dormim	hotărâm
voi	citiți	dormiți	hotărâți
ei/ele	citesc	dorm	hotărăsc

Citesc o carte despre istoria Bucureștiului.

I'm reading a book about the history of Bucharest.

De obicei dorm până la opt.

I usually sleep until eight.

Hotărăsc mâine dacă vin sau nu.

I'll decide tomorrow whether I'm coming or not.

There is no reliable rule for predicting whether a given -i verb takes the -esc infix or stays plain — you have to learn it per verb. The good news: the -esc group is the larger and more productive one, so when in doubt about a brand-new or borrowed -i verb, the -esc pattern is the safer guess. The infix gets its own deep-dive on the -esc/-ăsc infix page.

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Master the -esc present pattern early. It covers a huge slice of everyday class IV verbs (a vorbi → vorbesc, a găsi → găsesc, a privi → privesc, a iubi → iubesc, a folosi → folosesc) and the -ăsc variant is just its back-vowel twin.

What class membership does NOT tell you

This is the point that beginner resources often gloss over. Class predicts two things cleanly:

the present-tense endings (within the sub-patterns above), and
the infinitive shape (by definition).

It does not reliably predict the participle used in the compound perfect, nor does it shield you from irregular stems. Two verbs in the same class can have wildly different participles:

Infinitive	Class	Participle	Predictable?
a cânta	I	cântat	yes (regular -at)
a vedea	II	văzut	no (stem change)
a face	III	făcut	no (irregular)
a scrie	III	scris	no (irregular)
a dormi	IV	dormit	yes (regular -it)

Am scris deja scrisoarea.

I already wrote the letter. (participle 'scris', not *scriut)

Am văzut un film bun aseară.

I saw a good film last night. (participle 'văzut', not *vedut)

So the honest picture is: learn each verb as a small bundle — its infinitive (which gives you the class and the present), and its participle (which you simply have to memorize for classes II and III especially). The two big productive classes, I and IV, are the most regular in the participle too (-at and -it), which is part of why they keep absorbing new verbs.

Common mistakes

❌ A vedea este clasa a III-a.

Wrong — 'a vedea' ends in the diphthong -ea, so it is class II.

✅ A vedea este clasa a II-a; a bate este clasa a III-a.

Correct — -ea is class II; a plain -e (a bate) is class III.

❌ Eu citi o carte.

Wrong — 'a citi' takes the -esc infix in the present: eu citesc.

✅ Eu citesc o carte.

Correct — class IV -esc verbs insert -esc in the first person singular.

❌ Eu dormesc opt ore.

Wrong — 'a dormi' is a plain class IV verb with no infix.

✅ Eu dorm opt ore.

Correct — 'a dormi' keeps the bare stem: dorm.

❌ Am scriut un mesaj.

Wrong — the participle of 'a scrie' is irregular.

✅ Am scris un mesaj.

Correct — 'a scrie' has the irregular participle 'scris'.

Key takeaways

Read the class off the infinitive ending: -a (I), -ea (II), -e (III), -i / -î (IV).
Classes I and IV are large and productive; classes II and III are small, closed, and full of frequent irregulars.
The biggest early sub-pattern to drill is the -esc / -ăsc infix in class IV.
Class predicts the present and infinitive, but the participle for the compound perfect must be learned per verb.

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