Four of the shortest verbs in Romanian — a da (to give), a sta (to stay, to sit, to live), a bea (to drink), and a lua (to take) — are also four of the most irregular. This is no accident. These are old, monosyllabic, everyday verbs, and high-frequency verbs are precisely the ones that resist the leveling pressure that would otherwise smooth them into a regular class. You say them dozens of times a day, so their odd shapes survive intact. The good news is that there are only four, they are short, and once you have memorized the four little paradigms below you have covered an enormous share of real Romanian speech.
Why these verbs are irregular
A regular verb hands you its whole present tense from one predictable stem. These four don't. Their stems end in a vowel (da-, sta-, bea-, lua-), and a vowel-final stem colliding with vowel-initial endings produces contractions and diphthongs that no rule will reconstruct for you. Worse, a lua doesn't even keep one stem — it switches between ia- and lu- depending on the person. The only honest advice is to learn each paradigm as a fixed unit, the way you learned English go / goes / went. There is no shortcut, and pretending otherwise would mislead you.
a da — to give
A da is the verb of giving, but it also powers a huge range of idioms: a da telefon (to phone), a da examen (to take an exam), a-și da seama (to realize).
| Person | Form | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| eu | dau | I give |
| tu | dai | you give |
| el / ea | dă | he / she gives |
| noi | dăm | we give |
| voi | dați | you (pl.) give |
| ei / ele | dau | they give |
Îți dau eu banii mâine, nicio grijă.
I'll give you the money tomorrow, don't worry.
Ce-mi dai în schimb?
What will you give me in exchange?
Părinții îi dau bani de buzunar în fiecare săptămână.
His parents give him pocket money every week.
a sta — to stay, to sit, to stand, to live
A sta covers a wide spread of English verbs: to stay, to sit, to stand, to remain, and even to reside (Stau în București — I live in Bucharest). Its paradigm runs exactly parallel to a da: the st- simply replaces the d-.
| Person | Form | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| eu | stau | I stay / sit |
| tu | stai | you stay |
| el / ea | stă | he / she stays |
| noi | stăm | we stay |
| voi | stați | you (pl.) stay |
| ei / ele | stau | they stay |
Stau acasă diseară, sunt obosit.
I'm staying home tonight, I'm tired.
Unde stai acum, tot în centru?
Where do you live now, still downtown?
Stăm la coadă de o jumătate de oră.
We've been standing in line for half an hour.
a bea — to drink
A bea belongs historically to Class II (-ea), and its present keeps a vowel-final be- stem. Notice that the eu/ei form is beau (with the same -au diphthong as dau, stau), but the middle persons use plain -e-: bei, bem, beți. The third-person singular is bea, identical to the infinitive minus the particle.
| Person | Form | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| eu | beau | I drink |
| tu | bei | you drink |
| el / ea | bea | he / she drinks |
| noi | bem | we drink |
| voi | beți | you (pl.) drink |
| ei / ele | beau | they drink |
Beau o cafea în fiecare dimineață, fără excepție.
I drink a coffee every morning, without exception.
Tu ce bei, vin sau bere?
What are you drinking, wine or beer?
Copiii nu beau cafea.
Children don't drink coffee.
a lua — to take: the two-stem verb
A lua is the single trickiest present paradigm in the language, and it earns its reputation because it uses two completely different stems. The strong stem ia- appears in the singular and in the third-person plural; the weak stem lu- appears only in noi and voi. There is no way to derive one from the other — you simply have to hold both in your head at once.
| Person | Form | Stem | Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|
| eu | iau | ia- | I take |
| tu | iei | ia- | you take |
| el / ea | ia | ia- | he / she takes |
| noi | luăm | lu- | we take |
| voi | luați | lu- | you (pl.) take |
| ei / ele | iau | ia- | they take |
The shape is therefore: iau, iei, ia, luăm, luați, iau. Four ia- forms wrapped around two lu- forms in the middle. Note that the noi and voi endings (-ăm, -ați) are exactly the regular Class I endings — once you switch to the lu- stem, those two forms behave normally.
Iau autobuzul 783 până în centru.
I take the 783 bus into the center.
Tu ce iei la desert?
What are you having for dessert?
Luăm un taxi, e prea departe pe jos.
Let's take a taxi, it's too far on foot.
Copiii își iau ghiozdanele și pleacă la școală.
The children grab their backpacks and head off to school.
How a lua compares to English and Spanish
English take is wholly regular in the present (take, takes), so the two-stem split has no English parallel — your instinct will be to find one stem and stick with it, which is exactly the wrong instinct here. Spanish learners sometimes expect something like a stem-changing verb (pensar → pienso), but those alternate a vowel inside one stem; a lua swaps the entire root. The closest familiar analogy is genuinely suppletive English pairs like go/went — different roots living inside one verb.
Common Mistakes
❌ Eu dăsc banii.
Incorrect — *a da* has no -esc infix; the eu form is just 'dau'.
✅ Eu dau banii.
I give the money.
❌ Noi iuăm un taxi.
Incorrect — keeping the 'ia-' stem in the noi form; *a lua* switches to 'lu-' here.
✅ Noi luăm un taxi.
We take a taxi.
❌ Eu luez cafea dimineața.
Incorrect — there is no regularized *luez*; and this confuses 'take' with 'drink' (beau) anyway.
✅ Eu iau o cafea dimineața.
I have a coffee in the morning.
❌ Tu bi apă?
Incorrect — the tu form of *a bea* is 'bei', not 'bi'.
✅ Tu bei apă?
Are you drinking water?
❌ Voi stă acasă azi?
Incorrect — the voi ending is -ați; 'stă' is third person singular.
✅ Voi stați acasă azi?
Are you (all) staying home today?
Key Takeaways
- a da: dau, dai, dă, dăm, dați, dau. a sta is identical with st- for d-.
- a bea: beau, bei, bea, bem, beți, beau — the -au diphthong only in eu/ei.
- a lua has two stems: ia- (iau, iei, ia, iau) for singular and they, lu- (luăm, luați) for we and you-plural.
- In all four, the eu form and the ei/ele form are identical — context disambiguates.
- These verbs are irregular because they are old and frequent; memorize each as a fixed unit, not by rule.
Now practice Romanian
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Start learning Romanian→Related Topics
- The Present Indicative: OverviewA1 — An introduction to the Romanian present indicative — the workhorse tense that covers both 'I work' and 'I am working' and even the near future.
- Irregular Present Verbs: Consolidated ReferenceB1 — A one-stop reference gathering the truly irregular present paradigms of Romanian — a fi, a avea, a vrea, a da, a sta, a ști, a lua, a bea — with the high-frequency ones flagged and the patterns that tie them together.
- The Verb a vrea (to want): PresentA2 — The present forms of a vrea, its reduced future-auxiliary forms, and why 'want to' becomes a 'să' clause rather than an infinitive in Romanian.
- Class II Present: -ea VerbsA2 — How to conjugate the small but high-frequency Class II (-ea) verbs in the present indicative, with full paradigms for a vedea, a putea, and a plăcea.
- Class I Present: Regular -a VerbsA1 — How to conjugate plain Class I (-a) verbs in the present indicative, including the bare-stem first person and the 3sg = 3pl syncretism.