Ei au vorbit mult la telefon ieri seară.

They talked a lot on the phone last night.

Breakdown of Ei au vorbit mult la telefon ieri seară.

• seara: in the evening
• mult: a lot
• la: on
• telefonul: the phone

Questions & Answers about Ei au vorbit mult la telefon ieri seară.

What does Ei mean, and is it necessary here?

Ei is the third-person plural pronoun “they.” In Romanian you often drop the subject pronoun because the verb ending indicates who’s speaking (here au tells you it’s “they have”). Including ei adds emphasis or clarity. You could simply say Au vorbit mult la telefon ieri seară and it would still be correct.

Why do we use au vorbit instead of just vorbit?

Romanian uses the compound past tense (perfect compus) for most spoken past events. It’s formed with the present tense of a avea (here au) plus the past participle (vorbit). Using only vorbit without au is ungrammatical in standard Romanian.

Is mult an adjective here? Why doesn’t it agree in gender or number?

In this sentence, mult is an adverb meaning “a lot.” Adverbs in Romanian don’t change form. If mult were an adjective modifying a noun (e.g., multe ore – “many hours”), it would agree in gender and number, but here it modifies the verb.

Why la telefon? Can’t we say pe telefon or just telefon?

The idiomatic verb-preposition combination is a vorbi la telefon (“to talk on the phone”). Pe telefon or omitting the preposition would sound incorrect or incomplete.