Romanian inherited two infinitive forms from Latin, and over the centuries they split jobs. The short infinitive — a cânta, a merge, a citi, introduced by the little particle a — is the living verbal infinitive you'll use constantly. The long infinitive — cântare, mergere, citire, ending in -re — has mostly drifted out of the verb system and become a feminine noun (cântare "song, chant"; mâncare "food"; plăcere "pleasure"). Understanding this split clears up two things at once: why Romanian dictionaries cite verbs with the particle a, and why not every -re word you see is a verb.
The quick answer
- Short infinitive = the particle a
- the verb (a vorbi). This is the citation form and the only infinitive used as a verb today.
- Long infinitive = the verb stem + -re (vorbire). In modern Romanian this is overwhelmingly a noun, not a verb form.
- Even with a perfectly good infinitive available, Romanian usually prefers the conjunctiv (să-clause) over it: vreau să mănânc, not vreau a mânca.
The short infinitive: the real verbal infinitive
The short infinitive is the verb's dictionary form. It's built from the bare infinitive plus the particle a, which is a separate little word (not a prefix) and is unstressed.
| Class | Short infinitive | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| I | a cânta | to sing |
| II | a vedea | to see |
| III | a merge | to go |
| IV | a citi / a coborî | to read / to descend |
You use the short infinitive in a fairly narrow set of contexts. The most important are after the modal-type verbs a putea ("can") and a trebui ("must"), and after prepositions like fără ("without"), pentru ("for"), înainte de ("before").
Nu pot veni mâine.
I can't come tomorrow. (a putea + short infinitive)
Trebuie pleca... — better: trebuie să plec.
Note: with 'a trebui' the conjunctiv is far more common than the bare infinitive.
A plecat fără a spune nimic.
He left without saying anything. (preposition 'fără' + infinitive)
Înainte de a răspunde, gândește-te bine.
Before answering, think it over carefully.
Even a putea and a trebui allow a să-clause as an alternative (nu pot să vin, trebuie să plec), and in everyday speech that's frequently the more natural choice. The pure-infinitive constructions cling on mainly after prepositions like fără a and înainte de a, which sound clean and slightly formal.
The long infinitive: now mostly a noun
The long infinitive ends in -re and was historically the full infinitive. In modern Romanian it has largely nominalized — it behaves like a regular feminine noun, takes articles, and pluralizes. This is the key fact that distinguishes Romanian from its Romance siblings.
| Verb (short inf.) | Long infinitive / noun | Meaning as a noun |
|---|---|---|
| a cânta | cântare | song, chant |
| a mânca | mâncare | food |
| a plăcea | plăcere | pleasure |
| a vorbi | vorbire | speech, way of speaking |
| a citi | citire | reading (as a subject/act) |
| a iubi | iubire | love |
Mâncarea de aici e delicioasă.
The food here is delicious. ('mâncarea' = the food, a noun with the article)
Cu plăcere!
You're welcome! (literally 'with pleasure' — 'plăcere' is a noun)
A scris o carte despre iubire.
She wrote a book about love.
These words take feminine articles and plurals exactly like other nouns: o mâncare / mâncarea / mâncăruri; o plăcere / plăcerea / plăceri. They are no longer functioning as verbs at all — you can't say vreau cântare to mean "I want to sing."
Why Romanian still prefers the conjunctiv over the infinitive
Here's where Romanian surprises learners coming from Spanish, French, or Italian. Those languages happily stack an infinitive after a verb of wanting: quiero comer, je veux manger, voglio mangiare. Romanian, despite having a perfectly serviceable infinitive, avoids it in exactly this spot and uses a conjunctiv clause with să instead.
Vreau să mănânc.
I want to eat. (NOT 'vreau a mânca')
Îmi place să citesc seara.
I like to read in the evening.
Sper să te văd curând.
I hope to see you soon.
This is a Balkan areal feature: Greek, Bulgarian, Macedonian, and Albanian all show the same retreat of the infinitive in favor of a finite subjunctive clause. Romanian, geographically in the Balkans, picked it up even though it's a Romance language. The result is that the infinitive feels more formal and bookish in Romanian than in any other Romance language. When you're unsure whether to use a + infinitive or să + conjunctiv, the să-clause is almost always the more natural everyday choice. The detailed comparison lives on the infinitive vs conjunctiv page.
Why dictionaries cite the short infinitive with a
Putting the previous two sections together explains a small mystery. Because the long infinitive (-re) has drifted into nounhood, it can no longer serve as a clean, unambiguous citation form — cântare looks like, and largely is, a noun. So Romanian lexicography standardized on the short infinitive with the particle a: dictionaries list a cânta, a vedea, a citi. The a signals unambiguously "this is the verb." When you look a verb up, you'll always find it under a + stem, and that is the form you should store in your own vocabulary notes.
„a vorbi” se găsește în dicționar la litera V.
'a vorbi' is found in the dictionary under the letter V. (the verb is filed by its stem, with the particle a)
Common mistakes
❌ Vreau a mânca ceva.
Wrong — Romanian doesn't stack the bare infinitive after 'a vrea'.
✅ Vreau să mănânc ceva.
Correct — use the să-conjunctiv after a verb of wanting.
❌ Mâncare e gata.
Wrong — as a noun, 'mâncare' needs an article here.
✅ Mâncarea e gata.
Correct — 'mâncarea' (the food) is a feminine noun taking the article.
❌ Plăcerea de a te cunoaște — wait, this is actually correct.
Note — the long infinitive as a noun ('plăcerea') plus a short infinitive ('de a te cunoaște') coexist fine.
✅ Îmi face plăcere să te cunosc.
Correct everyday phrasing — 'plăcere' the noun, plus a să-clause.
❌ Cântare frumos! (as a command 'sing nicely')
Wrong — 'cântare' is a noun ('a song'), not a verb form you can command with.
✅ Cântă frumos!
Correct — the imperative of 'a cânta' is 'cântă'.
Key takeaways
- The short infinitive (a + stem) is the living verbal infinitive and the dictionary citation form.
- The long infinitive (-re) is, in modern Romanian, almost always a feminine noun — treat every -re word as a noun until proven otherwise.
- Romanian prefers the conjunctiv (să-clause) over the infinitive in most verb-plus-verb contexts, a Balkan feature with no parallel in other Romance languages.
- The nominalization of the long infinitive is precisely why dictionaries cite verbs with the particle a.
Now practice Romanian
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Start learning Romanian→Related Topics
- The Romanian Verb System: OverviewA1 — A map of the Romanian verb system — the four conjugation classes, the moods and non-finite forms, and the three features English speakers must internalize first.
- Using the Short InfinitiveB1 — Where the short infinitive (a face) survives in modern Romanian — chiefly after prepositions in formal writing — and why să has replaced it almost everywhere else.
- The Long Infinitive as a NounB2 — How Romanian's long infinitive (-re) became a productive engine for feminine abstract nouns — mâncare, plăcere, iubire — and why recognizing them as deverbal nouns, not verb forms, unlocks a large slice of vocabulary.
- Conjunctiv vs Infinitive: The Balkan ChoiceB1 — When Romanian uses a să-conjunctiv where its Romance cousins use the infinitive, and the handful of constructions where the infinitive survives — the structural signature of Romanian.
- Finite vs Non-Finite FormsB1 — The difference between Romanian's finite forms (which carry person, number, and tense) and its four non-finite forms — infinitive, gerund, participle, and the distinctively Romanian supine.