Mă doare spatele.

Mă means me. Romanian often expresses pain as:

The back hurts me
rather than
My back hurts

So Mă doare spatele is literally something like The back hurts me, but the natural English translation is My back hurts.

A useful pattern is:

• Mă doare capul = My head hurts
• Mă doare spatele = My back hurts
• Mă dor picioarele = My feet/legs hurt

So mă shows the person who feels the pain.

No, not really in the usual sense. It is better to think of it as an object pronoun meaning me, not as part of a reflexive verb like mă spăl = I wash myself.

Here, a durea works more like to hurt in It hurts me.
So:

• spatele = the thing that hurts
• mă = the person affected

Because spatele is singular.

With a durea, the verb agrees with the thing that hurts, not with the person feeling the pain.

• Mă doare spatele = My back hurts
  
  • spatele is singular, so doare
• Mă dor umerii = My shoulders hurt
  
  • umerii is plural, so dor

This is one of the most important patterns to learn with pain expressions in Romanian.

Because spatele is the definite form: the back.

In Romanian, the definite article is usually attached to the end of the noun:

• spate = back
• spatele = the back

With body parts, Romanian very often uses the definite form in this kind of sentence:

• Mă doare capul = My head hurts
• Mă doare mâna = My hand hurts
• Mă doare spatele = My back hurts

So even though English uses my, Romanian often uses the plus a pronoun like mă.

Because Romanian usually does not use the possessive adjective with body parts when the owner is already clear.

So the normal Romanian way is:

• Mă doare spatele = My back hurts

not usually:

• Mă doare spatele meu

Using spatele meu would sound emphatic, contrastive, or unusually explicit, as if you were stressing my back, not someone else’s.

This is similar to many Romance languages, where body parts are often expressed with a definite article rather than a possessive.

The verb is a durea = to hurt / to ache.

In this sentence, you most often meet it in two very common present-tense patterns:

• doare with a singular thing:
  • Mă doare spatele
  • Mă doare capul
• dor with a plural thing:
  • Mă dor picioarele
  • Mă dor ochii

So for everyday use, it helps to memorize the pair:

• doare = singular
• dor = plural

The most neutral, natural order is:

Mă doare spatele.

But Romanian can move things around for emphasis:

• Spatele mă doare. = It’s my back that hurts / My back is what hurts

That version is possible, but it is less neutral. For a learner, Mă doare spatele is the safest default.

Also, short pronouns like mă usually come before the verb in normal statements.

Not exactly.

Mă doare spatele means:

• My back hurts
• I have back pain

It describes the pain you feel now.

But English I hurt my back often means I injured my back. In Romanian, that is usually expressed differently, for example:

• Mi-am rănit spatele = I injured my back
• Mi-am făcut rău la spate = I hurt my back / I did something bad to my back

So Mă doare spatele is about the pain, not necessarily the cause.

You change the pronoun before the verb:

• Mă doare spatele = My back hurts
• Te doare spatele = Your back hurts
• Îl doare spatele = His back hurts
• O doare spatele = Her back hurts
• Ne doare spatele = Our back hurts / Our backs hurt depending on context
• Vă doare spatele = Your back hurts (plural or polite singular)
• Îi doare spatele = His/Her back hurts or sometimes Their back hurts, depending on context

The key thing is that doare stays singular because spatele is singular.

For the negative, add nu before the pronoun:

• Nu mă doare spatele. = My back doesn’t hurt.

For a yes/no question, Romanian often just uses intonation:

• Te doare spatele? = Does your back hurt?
• Mă doare spatele? = Does my back hurt? (possible, but less common without a special context)

You can also ask more naturally:

• Te doare spatele? = Does your back hurt?
• Unde te doare? = Where does it hurt?

Yes. Another very common expression is:

• Am dureri de spate. = I have back pain / I have pains in my back

Compared with Mă doare spatele:

• Mă doare spatele is very direct and conversational: My back hurts
• Am dureri de spate can sound slightly more formal, medical, or descriptive: I have back pain

Both are common and useful.