The short infinitive is the form you find in the dictionary, always cited with the particle a: a face (to do), a merge (to go), a ști (to know). If you know Spanish, French, or Italian, you expect this infinitive to do most of the heavy lifting — quiero ir, je veux aller, voglio andare. Romanian is the great exception in the Romance family: here the infinitive has been steadily pushed out of complement clauses by the subjunctive with să, so the natural way to say "I want to go" is vreau să merg, not vreau a merge. This page maps the territory the short infinitive still owns, so you stop reaching for it where it sounds wrong and start using it where it sounds polished.
The big picture: a receding form
In most of Romance, the infinitive is the default non-finite complement. In Romanian, that role belongs to the conjunctiv (subjunctive) introduced by să. The short infinitive has retreated to a few well-defined niches, most of them prepositional and most of them formal or written.
Pentru a reuși, trebuie să muncești mult.
To succeed, you have to work hard.
A plecat fără a spune un cuvânt.
He left without saying a word.
After prepositions (the main survival zone)
This is the heart of the matter. A small set of prepositions and prepositional phrases take the short infinitive, and they form the backbone of formal Romanian prose, journalism, and academic writing. The infinitive here is invariable — it never agrees with anything.
| Frame | Meaning | Register |
|---|---|---|
| pentru a + inf. | in order to | formal / neutral written |
| fără a + inf. | without (doing) | formal / written |
| înainte de a + inf. | before (doing) | formal / written |
| în loc de a + inf. | instead of (doing) | formal / written |
| departe de a + inf. | far from (doing) | formal / literary |
Înainte de a lua o decizie, vreau să citesc tot contractul.
Before making a decision, I want to read the whole contract.
În loc de a se plânge, ar fi mai bine să acționeze.
Instead of complaining, it would be better for them to act.
Departe de a fi o glumă, propunerea este foarte serioasă.
Far from being a joke, the proposal is very serious.
Note that each of these has a colloquial counterpart built with să: everyday speech prefers înainte să iau o decizie, în loc să se plângă. The infinitive versions are not wrong in speech, but they read as careful, written, or slightly elevated.
After a putea (and a few other modals)
With a putea (can, to be able to), Romanian historically allowed a bare infinitive without a: pot face (I can do). This survives but is now the marked, somewhat formal or literary option; the everyday choices are pot să fac or simply pot face.
Nu pot veni mâine, am o ședință.
I can't come tomorrow, I have a meeting.
Pot să te ajut cu bagajele?
Can I help you with the luggage?
The form pot a face — with the particle a kept after a putea — is archaic and you should not produce it. The two living patterns are the bare infinitive (pot face) and the subjunctive (pot să fac).
❌ Pot a veni mâine.
Archaic / wrong — do not keep 'a' after a putea.
✅ Pot veni mâine. / Pot să vin mâine.
I can come tomorrow.
After certain adjectives and in fixed expressions
A handful of adjectives and set phrases govern the short infinitive, again with a formal flavor.
Suntem gata de a începe negocierile.
We are ready to begin the negotiations.
E ușor de a critica, dar greu de a construi.
It is easy to criticize, but hard to build.
In the second pattern, the much more common everyday form drops the a entirely: e ușor de criticat, e greu de construit — the "supine" construction with the participle. The infinitive version (e ușor de a critica) is bookish.
There are also fully lexicalized phrases where the infinitive is frozen, the most famous being the existential pair a fi sau a nu fi:
A fi sau a nu fi, aceasta-i întrebarea.
To be or not to be, that is the question.
Why this matters: don't over-extend the infinitive
The classic learner error, driven by every other Romance language, is to use the short infinitive in complement clauses — exactly where Romanian demands să. If your native or stronger language is Spanish or Italian, you will instinctively say vreau a merge, îmi place a citi, trebuie a pleca. All of these are wrong in modern Romanian.
❌ Vreau a merge la mare.
Wrong — verb complements take 'să', not the infinitive.
✅ Vreau să merg la mare.
I want to go to the seaside.
The mental model: after a conjugated verb that introduces another action (want, can, must, like, begin, try…), Romanian almost always switches to să + subjunctive. The infinitive is reserved for the prepositional frames above. Get that division clear and you will sound far more natural than a learner who scatters infinitives everywhere.
Common Mistakes
❌ Îmi place a citi seara.
Wrong — 'a plăcea' takes 'să', not the bare infinitive.
✅ Îmi place să citesc seara.
I like to read in the evening.
❌ Pentru să reușești, trebuie să muncești.
Wrong — 'pentru' (same subject) takes the infinitive, not 'să'.
✅ Pentru a reuși, trebuie să muncești.
To succeed, you have to work hard.
❌ A plecat fără să spune nimic.
Wrong agreement — if you use 'fără să', the verb must be conjugated: 'fără să spună'.
✅ A plecat fără a spune nimic. / A plecat fără să spună nimic.
He left without saying anything.
❌ Trebuie a pleca acum.
Wrong — 'trebuie' takes 'să' + subjunctive (trebuie să plec), never the infinitive with 'a'.
✅ Trebuie să plec acum.
I have to leave now.
❌ Pot a te ajuta.
Archaic — 'a putea' no longer keeps the particle 'a'.
✅ Pot să te ajut. / Te pot ajuta.
I can help you.
Key Takeaways
- The short infinitive is receding; să
- subjunctive is the default complement of conjugated verbs.
- Its living home is after prepositions: pentru a, fără a, înainte de a, în loc de a, departe de a — mostly formal/written register.
- Pot face (bare infinitive) and pot să fac (subjunctive) are both correct; pot a face is archaic.
- Never use the infinitive as a verb complement (vreau a merge ❌). That is the single most common transfer error from other Romance languages.
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Start learning Romanian→Related Topics
- The Long and Short InfinitiveA2 — Romanian's two infinitives — the short infinitive with the particle 'a' (a cânta) used as the verbal infinitive, and the long infinitive (cântare) that has largely turned into a feminine noun.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.