Buretele este lângă pensulă.

Because Romanian usually adds the definite article to the end of the noun.

• burete = sponge
• buretele = the sponge

So the ending -le here is part of the definite form. This is different from English, where the is a separate word.

Este means is. It is the 3rd person singular form of the verb a fi = to be.

So:

• eu sunt = I am
• el/ea este = he/she is

In everyday speech, Romanians often shorten este to e:

• Buretele e lângă pensulă.

Lângă means next to, beside, or near.

It is a preposition, so it introduces a place relation:

• lângă masă = next to the table
• lângă ușă = next to the door

In your sentence, it shows where the sponge is in relation to the brush.

This is a very natural question.

As written, pensulă is the basic dictionary form: brush / paintbrush. In fully natural everyday Romanian, many speakers would normally expect an article here:

• lângă o pensulă = next to a paintbrush
• lângă pensula = next to the paintbrush

So Buretele este lângă pensulă can sound simplified or caption-like. In learning materials, bare nouns sometimes appear in short descriptive sentences, especially when the picture already makes the reference clear. But if you want the most idiomatic Romanian, you would usually choose either o pensulă or pensula, depending on the meaning.

Usually pensulă means a paintbrush or an artist's brush.

It is not the general word for every kind of brush. For example:

• pensulă = paintbrush
• perie = brush in a more general sense
• periuță de dinți = toothbrush
• perie de păr = hairbrush

So in many contexts, pensulă is best understood as paintbrush.

These are two important Romanian vowels:

• ă sounds like the final vowel in English sofa: a short uh sound.
• â has no exact English equivalent. It is a central vowel pronounced with the tongue high and centered in the mouth.

In lângă:

• â is the unusual Romanian vowel
• final ă is the soft uh sound

A rough beginner-friendly pronunciation of the whole sentence is:

boo-RE-te-le ES-te LUN-guh pen-SOO-luh

That is only an approximation, but it is good enough to get started.

• burete is neuter
• pensulă is feminine

Romanian neuter nouns behave like masculine in the singular and feminine in the plural.

So in the singular:

• un burete = a sponge
• buretele = the sponge

And for the feminine noun:

• o pensulă = a paintbrush
• pensula = the paintbrush

Lângă takes the accusative.

In this sentence, though, you do not see a special case ending, because Romanian nouns often have the same form in the nominative and accusative.

So the grammar is:

• Buretele = subject
• este = verb
• lângă pensulă = prepositional phrase with lângă
  • accusative noun

If the noun were definite, you would get lângă pensula.

The normal, neutral order here is:

subject + verb + place expression

So:

Buretele este lângă pensulă.

Romanian word order is fairly flexible, though. You can move parts around for emphasis:

• Lângă pensulă este buretele.

That sounds more marked or emphatic. The original sentence is the most straightforward and neutral version.

You can say:

• Un burete este lângă o pensulă. = A sponge is next to a paintbrush.
• Buretele este lângă pensula. = The sponge is next to the paintbrush.

These versions make the article choice fully explicit and sound more natural in ordinary Romanian.

Yes. That is very common.

• Buretele este lângă pensulă.
• Buretele e lângă pensulă.

Both are correct. Este sounds a little more careful or formal, while e is very common in normal speech.

In a normal sentence like this, you should keep it.

So you say:

• Buretele este lângă pensulă.
• Buretele e lângă pensulă.

You would not normally drop the verb and say just Buretele lângă pensulă in standard Romanian. Romanian usually keeps the form of to be in this kind of sentence.