Plomba protejează măseaua.

Because plomba is the definite singular form of the noun plombă, meaning filling in a dental context.

• plombă = a filling
• plomba = the filling

In this sentence, the speaker is talking about a specific filling, so Romanian uses the definite form.

For the same reason: măseaua is the definite singular form.

• măsea = a molar / a back tooth
• măseaua = the molar / the tooth

So the sentence refers to a specific tooth, not just any tooth.

This is a normal pattern for some Romanian feminine nouns ending in -ea.

Examples:

• măsea → măseaua
• cafea → cafeaua

So this is not random; it is part of how the definite article attaches to certain feminine nouns. You usually just need to learn this pattern as a noun-forming rule.

Protejează is the 3rd person singular present tense of a proteja = to protect.

So it means:

• he protects
• she protects
• it protects

In this sentence, the subject is plomba, so the best English equivalent is the filling protects.

Romanian usually does not need a subject pronoun when the verb form already shows the person and number.

So instead of saying something like It protects the molar, Romanian naturally says:

• Plomba protejează măseaua.

The noun plomba already tells you the subject, and protejează matches it.

A rough pronunciation guide is:

pro-te-JEA-ză

A few useful points:

• j sounds like the s in measure
• ea is pronounced together, roughly like ya / e-a depending on accent
• ă is the Romanian schwa-like sound, similar to the a in sofa

So protejează sounds approximately like pro-te-zhea-zuh, though not exactly in English spelling.

A rough guide is:

muh-SEA-wa

More exactly:

• mă has the Romanian ă, a neutral vowel like the a in sofa
• sea here sounds like sea
• ua forms a glide, roughly wa

So măseaua is approximately muh-SEA-wa.

Both refer to teeth, but they are not exactly the same.

• dinte = tooth in the general sense
• măsea = specifically a molar or back tooth

So măseaua is more specific than dintele. If the meaning shown to you is about a molar or a back tooth, măseaua is the right word.

Yes. Depending on context, plombă can have other meanings, such as a seal or lead seal. But in a sentence with măseaua, the dental meaning is clearly intended.

So here:

• plomba = the filling

This subject–verb–object order is the most neutral and natural:

• Plomba = subject
• protejează = verb
• măseaua = direct object

Romanian word order is somewhat flexible, so other orders are possible for emphasis, but this version is the standard, straightforward one.

In this sentence, the first noun, plomba, is naturally understood as the subject, and the sentence follows a normal subject + verb + object pattern.

So:

• Plomba = the thing doing the protecting
• măseaua = the thing being protected

Romanian often relies on word order and context like English does, especially in simple sentences like this one.

Romanian often uses the definite form when talking about specific, identifiable things.

Here, the sentence is not talking about fillings and molars in general, but about a particular filling and a particular tooth. So the definite forms are natural:

• plomba = the filling
• măseaua = the molar

This is very common in Romanian, especially when the context makes the objects specific.

The dictionary forms are:

• plombă = filling
• a proteja = to protect
• măsea = molar / back tooth

When you look words up, you normally search for:

• nouns in the indefinite singular
• verbs in the infinitive

So you would not usually look up plomba, protejează, or măseaua directly unless you already know their base forms.