Cheile mele sunt pe bancă, ale tale sunt în geantă.

My keys are on the bench, yours are in the bag.

Breakdown of Cheile mele sunt pe bancă, ale tale sunt în geantă.

• a fi: to be
• în: in
• meu: my
• pe: on

Questions & Answers about Cheile mele sunt pe bancă, ale tale sunt în geantă.

Why does the possessive adjective mele follow the noun cheile, instead of coming before it?

In Romanian, attributive possessive adjectives generally follow the noun they modify. So you say cheile mele (“the keys of mine”) rather than mele cheile, which would be ungrammatical.

What does the -le ending in cheile indicate?

The -le is the enclitic definite article for feminine plural nouns. The base form chei means “keys” (indefinite), while cheile means “the keys” (definite).

Why is the form mele used for “my” and not meu?

Romanian possessive adjectives agree in gender and number with the noun. Since cheie is feminine and we’re talking about more than one key, we need the feminine plural form mele. (The four forms of “my” are meu masc. sg., mea fem. sg., mei masc. pl., mele fem. pl.)

Why does the second clause say ale tale instead of just tale?

Here we use a pronominal possessive to replace cheile tale (“your keys”) and avoid repetition. Pronominal forms require the definite article (ale for feminine plural) plus the possessive adjective (tale).