Poliția verifică zona.

The ending -a is the definite article attached to the noun.

• poliție = police
• poliția = the police

Unlike English, Romanian usually does not put a separate word before the noun for the. Instead, it attaches the article to the end of the noun.

In Romanian, poliția is grammatically singular and feminine, so the verb also has to be third-person singular.

So:

• poliția verifică = the police checks / is checking

Even though English often treats the police as plural, Romanian commonly treats poliția as a singular institution.

Verifică is the 3rd person singular present form of the verb a verifica, which means to check or to inspect.

So the pattern is:

• a verifica = to check
• el/ea verifică = he/she checks
• poliția verifică = the police checks / is checking

It can mean either one, depending on context.

Romanian present tense often covers both:

• checks
• is checking

So Poliția verifică zona could mean:

• The police checks the area
• The police is checking the area

English chooses between simple and progressive more often than Romanian does.

The basic noun is zonă, meaning area or zone.

When you add the definite article the, it becomes zona:

• zonă = an area / area
• zona = the area

This is a common pattern with feminine singular nouns in Romanian: the final -ă often becomes -a when the definite article is added.

Romanian often uses pe before a direct object when that object is a person, an animate being, or a specific pronoun.

But zona is an inanimate thing, so pe is normally not used.

Compare the idea:

• verifică zona = checks the area
• vede pe Maria = sees Maria

So in this sentence, zona is a normal direct object without pe.

In this sentence:

• poliția is the subject
• zona is the direct object

Grammatically, that means:

• poliția is in the nominative
• zona is in the accusative

However, in Romanian, the forms often look the same in these cases, especially with nouns like these. So you identify their role mainly from the sentence structure and the verb.

This is the most neutral word order: subject + verb + object.

• Poliția = subject
• verifică = verb
• zona = object

Romanian word order is fairly flexible, though. You can change it for emphasis, but the neutral version is the one you see here.

For example, a different order might be used to emphasize the area or the police, but Poliția verifică zona is the standard, straightforward wording.

A useful approximate breakdown is:

• Poliția = po-li-ȚI-a
• verifică = ve-ri-FI-că
• zona = ZO-na

A few important pronunciation points:

• ț sounds like ts in cats
• ă sounds like the a in about or sofa
• the stress is roughly on -ți-, -fi-, and zo-

So the whole sentence sounds approximately like:

po-li-ȚI-a ve-ri-FI-că ZO-na