Azi avem o lecție scurtă de limba română.

“Azi” and “Astăzi” both mean “today”.

• “Astăzi” is slightly more formal or neutral.
• “Azi” is shorter and more colloquial, very common in everyday speech.

You can usually replace one with the other without changing the meaning:

• Azi avem o lecție… = Astăzi avem o lecție…

So the sentence could also be: Astăzi avem o lecție scurtă de limba română.

Romanian often drops the subject pronoun (like Spanish or Italian).

• The verb “avem” is the 1st person plural form of “a avea” (to have).
• “avem” by itself already means “we have”.

You could say “Noi avem o lecție scurtă…”, but “noi” (we) is usually omitted unless you want to emphasize we in contrast to others. The neutral, normal version is just “Avem o lecție…” or, with an adverb, “Azi avem o lecție…”.

Romanian does not usually use a continuous form like English “are having”.

• English: we have / we are having
• Romanian: both are just avem

The present tense in Romanian typically covers:

• a general fact: Avem o lecție în fiecare joi. – We have a lesson every Thursday.
• something happening now: Azi avem o lecție scurtă. – Today we’re having a short lesson.

So “avem” can translate as “we have” or “we are having”, depending on context.

Romanian has gendered nouns and the indefinite article agrees with the noun:

• “lecție” (lesson) is feminine.
• Feminine singular indefinite article: “o”
• Masculine singular indefinite article: “un”

So:

• o lecție = a lesson (feminine)
• un curs = a course/class (masculine)

That’s why the sentence uses “o lecție”, not “un lecție”.

In Romanian, the normal position of most adjectives is after the noun:

• English: a short lesson
• Romanian: o lecție scurtă

General rule:

• Noun + Adjective: lecție scurtă, carte interesantă (interesting book), film bun (good movie)

Some adjectives can come before the noun for stylistic reasons or to change the nuance, but for a basic, neutral phrase, “o lecție scurtă” is the standard and most natural order.
“o scurtă lecție” is possible in some contexts, but it sounds a bit more literary or emphatic.

Literally, “de limba română” means “of the Romanian language”.

• limbă = language / tongue
• limba = the language (feminine singular, with the definite article attached)
• română = Romanian (adjective, feminine singular, agreeing with “limba”)

So the structure is:

• o lecție (scurtă) de limba română
  → a (short) lesson of the Romanian language

In everyday speech, people often say simply:

• o lecție de română – a Romanian lesson / a lesson of Romanian

Both “de limba română” and “de română” are correct; the version with “limba” is just more explicit and slightly more formal or textbook-like.

Romanian usually attaches the definite article to the end of the noun, instead of putting a separate word in front:

• limbă = language
• limba = the language

So:

• limbă română = Romanian language (in a general sense, without “the”)
• limba română = the Romanian language

After certain prepositions like “de”, it’s very normal to use the definite form:

• de limba română = of the Romanian language

That’s why you see “limba”, not “limbă”, in this phrase.

Romanian adjectives agree in gender and number with the noun they describe.

• român – masculine form (e.g. băiat român = Romanian boy)
• română – feminine form (e.g. limbă română = Romanian language)
• români – masculine plural / mixed group (e.g. oameni români = Romanian people)
• române – feminine plural (e.g. fete române = Romanian girls)

Because “limbă/limba” is feminine singular, the adjective must also be feminine singular:

• limba română = the Romanian language

“lecție” is pronounced approximately: [ˈlek.t͡sie], like “LEK-tsyeh”.

Breaking it down:

• le – like “leh”
• cț – two consonants: k
  • ts
• ie – a bit like “ye” in “yes”, but closer together

The letter “ț” (t with a comma/cedilla) represents the sound /ts/ (like “ts” in “cats”).
Without the diacritic, “t” is just a plain /t/ sound.

So:

• țe → /tse/
• ție → roughly /tsye/, as in lecție

Both can translate as “class” or “lesson”, but there’s a nuance:

• lecție

  • a lesson in a schoolbook / private tutoring session
  • a smaller unit of study (one topic, one chapter)
  • common in primary/secondary school: lecție de matematică (math lesson)

• curs

  • a course, especially at university or in adult education
  • also used for a scheduled class session at university
  • curs de limba română = Romanian language course

In your sentence, “o lecție scurtă de limba română” suggests a single short lesson, not an entire course.