Dacă ești liber mâine, hai să mergem la restaurantul ieftin.

to be

Breakdown of Dacă ești liber mâine, hai să mergem la restaurantul ieftin.

• mâine: tomorrow
• la: to
• dacă: if

Questions & Answers about Dacă ești liber mâine, hai să mergem la restaurantul ieftin.

Why is the present tense ești used for a future time expression like mâine, instead of the future tense vei fi?

In Romanian, when a condition refers to the future, you normally use the simple present in both the dacă-clause and the main clause. So Dacă ești liber mâine literally means If you are free tomorrow, even though it talks about the future. Using Dacă vei fi liber mâine isn’t wrong, but it sounds more formal or marked; everyday speech favors the simple present.

What does hai să mergem mean, and how is that construction formed?

hai + să + verb-subjunctive is the standard way to say let’s… in Romanian.

• hai literally comes from an old imperative of a da but now functions like “come on” or “let’s.”
• să introduces the subjunctive (conjunctiv) mood.
• mergem is the first-person plural subjunctive of a merge (“to go”).
  Together, hai să mergem = let’s go.

How can I tell that mergem here is subjunctive and not the indicative?