Learn Hardcore Romanian: După aceea decidem cine lucrează singur și cine lucrează în grup. - After that we decide who works alone and who works in a group.

după aceea – neutral, slightly more formal or careful speech; very common in both spoken and written Romanian.
după asta – more colloquial; asta sounds a bit more informal than aceea.
apoi – often simply “then / afterwards”; a bit shorter and very common in narratives or step-by-step instructions.

In this sentence, „După aceea decidem…” sounds natural and neutral; you could replace it with „După asta decidem…” or „Apoi decidem…” without changing the meaning much.

Why is „decidem” in the present tense if in English we might say “we will decide”?

Romanian often uses the present tense to talk about future actions that are planned or scheduled, especially when the sequence is clear from context, like:

După aceea decidem – After that we decide / we’ll decide.

This is similar to English sentences like “Tomorrow we leave at 7.” (present form, future meaning).

If you really want to stress the future, you can say:

După aceea vom decide cine lucrează… – After that we will decide who will work…

But in everyday speech, „decidem” is perfectly natural and commonly used with a future sense here.

Why is there no explicit subject pronoun „noi” in „decidem”?

In Romanian, the verb ending shows the subject, so subject pronouns (eu, tu, el, noi, voi, ei etc.) are often omitted unless you want to emphasize them.

decidem already tells you it is first person plural → “we decide”.
noi decidem would be understood as “we decide” (as opposed to someone else), with extra emphasis on we.

So „După aceea decidem…” is the normal, unmarked form. Adding „noi” is grammatically correct but less neutral in tone.

How does „cine” work here, and why is the verb singular in „cine lucrează”?

„cine” means “who” and is grammatically singular in Romanian, even if logically it can refer to more than one person.

Therefore, the verb following „cine” is in the 3rd person singular:

cine lucrează – literally “who works”, not “who work”.

This is a fixed pattern:

Cine vine? – Who is coming?
Cine a spus asta? – Who said that?

Even if the answer might be several people, the grammar after „cine” stays singular in Romanian.

Why is „lucrează” repeated: „cine lucrează singur și cine lucrează în grup”? Could we say it only once?

It’s repeated to keep the structure clear and balanced:

cine lucrează singur – who works alone
și cine lucrează în grup – and who works in a group

In Romanian, when you have two different predicates (work alone vs. work in group), it is very natural to repeat the verb.

You could shorten it a bit to:

După aceea decidem cine lucrează singur și cine în grup.

This is also acceptable, but feels a bit more compact and less explicit. The original version with full repetition is clear and very natural.

What exactly does „singur” mean here, and why is it in this form?

„singur” means “alone / by oneself” here.

Grammatically, singur is an adjective that agrees in gender and number:

masculine singular: singur
feminine singular: singură
masculine plural: singuri
feminine plural: singure

In this sentence, we’re talking in general about “who works alone”, not about a specific identifiable male or female, so Romanian tends to use the masculine singular as the default generic form:

cine lucrează singur – who works alone (generic, not specifically male)

If we were explicitly talking about a female person, you might see:

Ea lucrează singură. – She works alone.

Why is the word order „lucrează singur” and not „singur lucrează”?

In Romanian, adjectives or adverb-like words such as singur usually come after the verb when they describe how someone does something:

lucrează bine – works well
lucrează repede – works fast
lucrează singur – works alone

You can say „singur lucrează”, but that changes the emphasis: it sounds like “he alone is working (nobody else is)”, not “he works without a partner”.

So:

lucrează singur – works by himself
singur lucrează – he’s the only one who works (others don’t)

Why is it „în grup” and not „într-un grup”? Is there a difference?

Both are possible, but there is a nuance:

în grup – in a group / in groups in a general, non-specific way.
It’s about the mode of working (group work), not about a particular, countable group.
într-un grup – in a (specific) group (literally “in a group”), a bit more concrete, as if you’re talking about one identifiable group.

In contexts like organizing activities, „în grup” is very natural and idiomatic, similar to English “in groups” or “in group work”. The sentence is talking about group work as a general setup, not about one particular group you’ve already defined.

Could we say „în echipă” instead of „în grup”? Would that change the meaning?

You can say:

cine lucrează în echipă – who works in a team

The difference is small but real:

grup – any group of people, more general.
echipă – a team, often with a sense of collaboration, roles, and a goal.

In teaching or workshop contexts, „în grup” is extremely common when you mean group activities.
„în echipă” emphasizes teamwork more than just being placed in a group.

Do we need a comma before „și cine lucrează în grup”?

No comma is necessary here:

După aceea decidem cine lucrează singur și cine lucrează în grup.

Here, „cine lucrează singur și cine lucrează în grup” is one whole object clause of „decidem”, and „și” is just joining two parallel parts inside it.

Adding a comma (…singur, și cine…) would sound strange and is not standard in this structure.

Is „lucrează” the present tense of the verb „a lucra”? What are the other present forms?

Yes. „lucrează” is the 3rd person singular (and also 3rd person plural) present indicative of a lucra (to work).

Present tense of a lucra:

eu lucrez – I work
tu lucrezi – you (singular) work
el / ea lucrează – he / she works
noi lucrăm – we work
voi lucrați – you (plural) work
ei / ele lucrează – they work

So in „cine lucrează singur”, lucrează matches „cine” (who) in the 3rd person singular.

Is this sentence talking about a specific situation now, or is it a general rule?

By itself, the sentence could be either, depending on context:

Specific, planned sequence (very common):
- După aceea decidem cine lucrează singur și cine lucrează în grup.
  → After that, we (will) decide who will work alone and who will work in a group.
General procedure / rule:
- It can also mean something like:
  → After that, we (always) decide who works alone and who works in a group.

Context around the sentence would make it clear; the grammar itself allows both readings.