Trenul pleacă la ora opt.

to leave

Breakdown of Trenul pleacă la ora opt.

• la: at
• ora: the hour
• opt: eight

Questions & Answers about Trenul pleacă la ora opt.

Why is the noun trenul used instead of tren?

Romanian marks the definite article by attaching it to the end of the noun. So trenul literally means “the train,” whereas tren would be just “train” (indefinite).

What form of the verb is pleacă, and how does it translate into English?

Pleacă is the third person singular present tense of a pleca (“to leave, to depart”). Here it corresponds to “(he/she/it) departs,” so trenul pleacă means “the train departs.”

Why do we say la ora opt to express the departure time?

To talk about clock time in Romanian you use the preposition la (“at”), followed by ora plus the cardinal number. So la ora opt literally means “at the hour eight,” i.e. “at eight o’clock.”

Could you drop ora and just say la opt or even pleacă opt?

In spoken Romanian, trenul pleacă la opt is perfectly fine and idiomatic. However, you usually cannot omit the preposition and article entirely, so pleacă opt without la sounds awkward and isn’t used.

Is it always a cardinal number when telling time? Why not use an ordinal like “eighth”?