Poliția vede atacul.

Romanian usually puts the definite article at the end of the noun, not before it like English does.

• poliție = police

• poliția = the police

• atac = attack
• atacul = the attack

So in this sentence:

• -a in poliția marks the noun as definite
• -ul in atacul also marks the noun as definite

This is a very common pattern in Romanian and one of the first big differences English speakers notice.

Their basic, dictionary forms are:

• poliție = police
• atac = attack

The sentence uses the definite singular forms:

• poliție → poliția
• atac → atacul

So if you look these words up in a dictionary, you would usually search for poliție and atac, not the forms with the attached article.

Vede is the 3rd person singular present form of the verb a vedea, which means to see.

So:

• eu văd = I see
• tu vezi = you see
• el/ea vede = he/she sees

In this sentence, poliția is grammatically singular, so Romanian uses vede.

This is a very natural question for English speakers.

In Romanian, poliția is usually treated as a singular collective noun, especially when it means the police as an institution or force. So Romanian says:

• Poliția vede...
• literally, grammatically: the police sees...

English works differently and often uses plural agreement with the police. So this is not a meaning difference so much as a grammar difference between the two languages.

Romanian often uses pe before a direct object when that object is a specific person or sometimes another animate being.

Examples:

• Văd copilul.
• Îl văd pe profesor.

But atacul is an inanimate thing, so pe is not used here.

So:

• Poliția vede atacul. is correct.

Using pe here would sound wrong in normal Romanian.

Yes. In this sentence, atacul is the direct object, so functionally it is in the accusative.

However, in Romanian, many nouns have the same form for nominative and accusative, especially in straightforward sentences like this one.

So:

• atacul can be the subject form
• atacul can also be the direct object form

The role is understood mostly from word order and sentence structure.

Two letters here are especially important:

• ț is pronounced like ts in cats
• ă is a short central vowel, something like the a in sofa, but shorter and more reduced

So poliția is roughly pronounced like:

po-li-tsi-a

More naturally, the ți part sounds like tsi.

A rough English-friendly approximation would be:

po-lee-TSEE-ah

That is only approximate, but it helps at the beginning.

Poliția vede atacul is the most neutral word order: subject + verb + object.

Romanian word order is fairly flexible, so other orders are possible, but they usually change the emphasis or sound more marked.

For example, a reordered version might highlight the attack or the police more strongly. But for a plain, neutral statement, Poliția vede atacul is the natural choice.

So for learners, this is the best order to remember first.

Because Romanian definite articles change depending on the noun’s gender and form.

Here:

• poliție is a feminine noun, so the definite form is poliția
• atac is a masculine noun, so the definite form is atacul

Very roughly:

• many feminine singular nouns take -a
• many masculine singular nouns take -ul

There are spelling and form patterns to learn, but this basic contrast is a good first step.

Not necessarily. In this sentence, Poliția is capitalized simply because it is the first word of the sentence.

If it appeared in the middle of a sentence as a common noun, it would normally be lowercase:

• Am văzut poliția.

It would only be capitalized in special naming contexts, such as part of an official title or proper name.