Am lapte aici.

to have

Breakdown of Am lapte aici.

• aici: here
• laptele: the milk

Questions & Answers about Am lapte aici.

What does am mean in Am lapte aici?

am is the first-person singular present-tense form of the verb a avea, which means “to have.” So am = “I have.”

Why is there no subject pronoun eu (“I”) in Am lapte aici?

In Romanian, subject pronouns are optional because the verb ending already shows who is acting. Here, -m on am tells you it’s first person singular, so eu is dropped.

Why is there no article before lapte?

lapte is an uncountable (mass) noun, so you generally don’t use the indefinite article. You simply say lapte for “(some) milk.” If you wanted to specify an amount you could say:

• un pahar de lapte (“a glass of milk”)
• niște lapte (“some milk”)

What is the gender of lapte and does it affect this sentence?

lapte is a neuter noun. Neuter nouns in Romanian behave like masculine in the singular and like feminine in the plural. Here, since it’s singular, anything applying to masculine singular would apply, but because there’s no adjective or article, you don’t see any change.

Why is placed at the end rather than the beginning?