De obicei beau cafea dimineața.

I usually drink coffee in the morning.

Breakdown of De obicei beau cafea dimineața.

• cafeaua: the coffee
• dimineață: in the morning
• a bea: to drink
• de obicei: usually

Questions & Answers about De obicei beau cafea dimineața.

What does De obicei mean?

De obicei is an adverbial phrase meaning usually or generally, used to describe actions that happen regularly.

Why is there no article before cafea? Shouldn't it be o cafea?

When talking about coffee in general (as an uncountable or mass noun), Romanian omits the article. Here cafea is like English coffee. If you said o cafea, it would mean a coffee (i.e. one cup of coffee), which is more specific.

Why isn't there a preposition before dimineața? Why don't we say în dimineață?

In Romanian you often use a time-of-day noun with its definite article to mean “in the ….” So dimineața literally means the morning, but functions adverbially as in the morning. Adding în would be redundant or even sound odd in this fixed expression.

Why does dimineață end with -a?

Dimineață is a feminine noun. Adding -a at the end is the enclitic definite article, turning dimineață (morning) into dimineața (the morning). In time expressions this form implies “in the morning.”