Some Romanian verbs never get a real subject. They describe things that simply happen — it rains, it is necessary, there exists — with no person doing the action. These are the impersonal (and partly defective) verbs, used almost exclusively in the third-person singular. The headline contrast for an English speaker is this: English props such sentences up with a dummy pronoun it ("it rains," "it is necessary"), but Romanian uses the bare verb with no subject pronoun at all. Plouă — one word — is a complete sentence meaning "it's raining."
Weather verbs: bare 3sg, no pronoun
Meteorological verbs are the purest impersonals: there is no one and nothing that "does" the raining. Romanian states them in the third-person singular alone.
| Verb | 3sg form | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| a ploua | plouă | it rains / it's raining |
| a ninge | ninge | it snows / it's snowing |
| a tuna | tună | it thunders |
| a fulgera | fulgeră | there's lightning |
| a se înnora | se înnorează | it's clouding over |
Plouă de azi-dimineață fără oprire.
It's been raining nonstop since this morning.
Afară ninge liniștit, cu fulgi mari.
Outside it's snowing quietly, with big flakes.
Se înnorează — hai să intrăm.
It's clouding over — let's go inside.
Trebuie — the famously invariable modal
The verb a trebui (to have to, must) is the most important impersonal in the language, and it has a defining quirk: in its core modal use it is invariable — it stays trebuie for every person. You do not conjugate it to agree with the subject. The person is expressed instead by the verb in the conjunctiv (the să-clause) that follows.
| Meaning | Romanian |
|---|---|
| I must leave | trebuie să plec |
| you must leave | trebuie să pleci |
| he must leave | trebuie să plece |
| we must leave | trebuie să plecăm |
| you (pl.) must leave | trebuie să plecați |
| they must leave | trebuie să plece |
The trebuie never moves; only the second verb changes. This is the gateway to the entire modal + conjunctiv system — once you accept that an invariable verb hands off person-marking to a să-clause, constructions like e bine să, e nevoie să, se poate să all click into place.
Trebuie să plec acum, am întârziat.
I have to go now, I'm late.
Trebuie să mergem mai repede, altfel pierdem trenul.
We have to go faster, otherwise we'll miss the train.
Copiii trebuie să se culce devreme.
The children have to go to bed early.
(In careful or literary Romanian, trebuie does take a past form a trebuit and can govern a noun — îmi trebuie timp, "I need time." But the everyday modal "must" is the invariable trebuie să pattern.)
Existential: există
A exista (to exist) is used impersonally to mean "there is / there are." Like English there is/are, it heads an existential statement, but it agrees in number with the thing that exists.
Există o soluție mai simplă pentru asta.
There's a simpler solution for this.
Nu există motiv de panică.
There's no reason to panic.
Verbs of seeming: pare, se pare că
A părea (to seem) appears impersonally as pare and especially in the fixed frame se pare că ("it seems that"), introducing a whole clause. Again, no dummy pronoun.
Se pare că au amânat ședința.
It seems they've postponed the meeting.
Pare că vine ploaia.
It looks like rain is coming.
Îmi pare rău, n-am vrut să te supăr.
I'm sorry, I didn't mean to upset you. (the fixed expression 'îmi pare rău')
The deep contrast: Romanian has no dummy subject
English grammar requires every finite clause to have a subject, even when there is nothing to be a subject — so it manufactures the expletive it ("it rains," "it is necessary," "it seems") and there ("there is a problem"). Romanian, being a pro-drop language with rich verb endings, feels no such pressure: it leaves the subject slot genuinely empty. This is why the most natural Romanian rendering of "it's raining" is a single word, plouă, and why trying to translate the English it leaves you stranded — there is no word to translate it into. Internalizing "no dummy subject" is the conceptual unlock for this whole family of verbs.
Common Mistakes
❌ El plouă afară.
Incorrect — weather verbs take no subject pronoun; there is no 'it' to translate.
✅ Plouă afară.
It's raining outside.
❌ El trebuie merge la doctor.
Incorrect — 'trebuie' must be followed by 'să' + conjunctiv, and takes no subject pronoun.
✅ Trebuie să meargă la doctor.
He has to go to the doctor.
❌ Eu trebuiesc să plec.
Incorrect — 'trebuie' is invariable; it does not conjugate for person.
✅ Trebuie să plec.
I have to leave.
❌ Noi trebuim să mergem mai repede.
Incorrect — never conjugate 'trebuie'; person lives in the să-clause.
✅ Trebuie să mergem mai repede.
We have to go faster.
❌ Este o soluție mai simplă. (intended: 'there is a solution')
Weak for existential 'there is'; the idiomatic verb is 'există'.
✅ Există o soluție mai simplă.
There's a simpler solution.
Key Takeaways
- Impersonal verbs live in the bare 3rd-person singular with no subject pronoun — Romanian has no dummy it.
- Weather: plouă, ninge, tună, fulgeră, se înnorează.
- trebuie is invariable — trebuie să plec / pleci / plecăm; never trebuim. It requires să
- conjunctiv.
- există = "there is/are"; se pare că / pare = "it seems that."
- trebuie's invariability is the gateway to the whole modal + conjunctiv machinery.
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- 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 Impersonal se (one/you/they)B1 — How Romanian uses se for fully generic statements with no specific subject — the natural rendering of English 'one', 'you', 'they', and 'people'.
- Conjunctiv After Modals: a putea, a trebui, a vreaA2 — How modal and control verbs (a vrea, a putea, a trebui, a încerca, a reuși, a spera) force a să-clause where English uses an infinitive, and the one verb that still tolerates the infinitive.
- Why Romanian Drops Subject PronounsA1 — Romanian is a pro-drop language: the verb ending already names the subject, so eu, tu, and noi are normally left out — and adding them sounds emphatic, not casual.
- să-Subjunctive vs InfinitiveB1 — When to chain verbs with the să-subjunctive (Vreau să plec) and the narrow set of cases where Romanian still uses the bare infinitive — almost exclusively after prepositions (pentru a reuși, fără a ști) and after a putea.