Actorul șoptește ca și cum publicul ar dormi.

Because Romanian usually puts the definite article at the end of the noun, not in front of it.

• actor = an actor
• actorul = the actor
• public = audience / public
• publicul = the audience

So -ul here means the.

Șoptește is the 3rd person singular present-tense form of the verb a șopti = to whisper.

In this sentence, the subject is Actorul = the actor, which is he/she/it grammatically, so Romanian uses the 3rd person singular:

• eu șoptesc = I whisper
• tu șoptești = you whisper
• el/ea șoptește = he/she whispers

So Actorul șoptește means The actor whispers.

Ca și cum means as if.

It introduces a comparison that is not necessarily real, but imagined or presented from a certain point of view.

So:

• Actorul șoptește ca și cum... = The actor whispers as if...

This is a very common Romanian expression.

After ca și cum = as if, Romanian often uses the conditional mood to show something hypothetical, imagined, or not presented as a fact.

So:

• ar dormi = would be sleeping / would sleep

In this sentence, the actor is whispering as if the audience were asleep. The point is not that the audience is definitely asleep, but that the actor behaves that way.

That is why Romanian uses:

• ca și cum publicul ar dormi

rather than a straightforward factual form like doarme.

Ar dormi is the present conditional of a dormi = to sleep.

It is formed with:

• the conditional auxiliary ar
• the infinitive/base form dormi

Examples:

• aș dormi = I would sleep
• ai dormi = you would sleep
• ar dormi = he/she/it would sleep

Here, publicul is grammatically singular, so Romanian uses ar dormi.

Because publicul means the audience, which is treated as a singular collective noun in Romanian.

So even though an audience contains many people, the grammar is singular:

• publicul ar dormi = the audience would be sleeping / were asleep

This is similar to English the audience being singular in many contexts.

Not very naturally. Word for word, it looks something like like also how, but that is not how you should understand it.

You should learn ca și cum as a fixed expression meaning:

• as if

That is the natural equivalent.

No, the word order is quite normal.

• Actorul = subject
• șoptește = verb
• ca și cum publicul ar dormi = comparison clause

Romanian word order is often flexible, but this sentence uses a very standard, neutral order: Subject + verb + subordinate clause

A fairly literal version would be:

The actor whispers as if the audience would sleep

But that is not natural English. Natural English would usually say:

• The actor whispers as if the audience were asleep
• or The actor whispers as though the audience were asleep

So the Romanian conditional structure does not always match the most natural English wording exactly.

In this sentence:

• ș is pronounced like sh in shoe
• ă is a short central vowel, something like the a in sofa or about

So:

• șoptește begins with a sh sound
• Actorul ends with a light -ul
• if you say ca și cum, the și starts with sh

A rough pronunciation guide:

• Actorul ≈ ak-TOR-ul
• șoptește ≈ shop-TESH-te
• publicul ≈ PUBL-ee-kul
• ar dormi ≈ ar dor-MEE

Yes. De parcă can also mean as if, and in many contexts it is close to ca și cum.

So a similar sentence could be:

• Actorul șoptește de parcă publicul ar dormi.

Both are natural, though ca și cum is often the more neutral textbook expression.

Because Romanian is different from English in this respect. In English, the definite article is a separate word:

• the actor
• the audience

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

• actorul
• publicul

So you should think of Romanian as saying something like:

• actor-the
• audience-the

even though that is not how English works.