Learn Hardcore Romanian: Trimiteam rar emailuri, pentru că nu aveam cont și parolă. - I rarely sent emails because I didn’t have an account and a password.

Imperfect (here: trimiteam) – for:
- repeated / habitual actions in the past
- ongoing background actions in the past
Perfect compus (here would be am trimis) – for:
- single, completed actions or a sequence of completed actions

In Trimiteam rar emailuri, the speaker is talking about a habit in the past (something that happened regularly, though not often). So the imperfect trimiteam is the natural choice.

If you said Am trimis rar emailuri, it could be understood, but it sounds more like:

you are summing up a finished period in the past, looking back on it from now, or
you are talking about the number of times you sent emails in that period.

The given sentence focuses on the habitual nature (I used to rarely send emails), so trimiteam is best.

Does trimiteam mean I was sending or we were sending? How do I know the subject?

The verb form trimiteam can be both:

1st person singular (I) – eu trimiteam
1st person plural (we) – noi trimiteam

In this standalone sentence, the subject pronoun (eu or noi) is dropped because Romanian usually omits subject pronouns when the verb ending already shows the person.

To know if it is I or we, you normally rely on:

previous context in the conversation or text, or
an explicit subject somewhere nearby: Eu trimiteam rar emailuri… or Noi trimiteam rar emailuri…

So grammatically, both are possible; context decides which one is meant.

Why is there no word for I or we? Can I say Eu trimiteam rar emailuri?

Yes, you can say:

Eu trimiteam rar emailuri, pentru că nu aveam cont și parolă.
Noi trimiteam rar emailuri, pentru că nu aveam cont și parolă.

Romanian is a pro-drop language: it often omits subject pronouns (eu, tu, el, etc.) because the verb ending usually tells you who the subject is.

You add the pronoun mainly for:

emphasis: Eu trimiteam rar emailuri, nu el.
contrast: Eu trimiteam, dar el nu trimitea.

Without emphasis or contrast, the more natural version is to simply drop eu or noi, as in the original sentence.

What exactly does rar mean here? Is it the same as rarely?

Yes, rar here means rarely, seldom, infrequently.

It is an adverb and answers the question how often?.

You can also see:

foarte rar – very rarely
mai rar – less often / more rarely
a more literary / emphatic word: rărăori – also rarely, but less common in everyday speech

So Trimiteam rar emailuri = I / we rarely sent emails.

Can I change the position of rar? For example, say Rar trimiteam emailuri or Trimiteam emailuri rar?

Yes, all of these are grammatically correct, with slightly different emphasis:

Trimiteam rar emailuri.
Neutral, very natural word order. Slight emphasis on how often (rar).
Rar trimiteam emailuri.
Puts stronger emphasis on rar. It sounds a bit more stylistic or emphatic:
Rarely did I send emails.
Trimiteam emailuri rar.
Also correct, but in practice Romanians more often say Trimiteam rar emailuri. The version with rar immediately after the verb is the usual one.

All three are understandable; the original one is the most typical.

Why is emailuri in the plural? Could I say just Trimiteam rar email?

Here, emailuri is the plural of email and corresponds to emails in English.

Romanian commonly uses the plural when talking about a repeated action affecting countable things:

Trimiteam rar emailuri.
I / we rarely sent emails (in general, more than one over time).

If you say:

Trimiteam rar un email.

it sounds a bit odd; you are combining rar (suggesting habit or frequency) with un email (a single email). You might use that only in a very particular context, such as:

Trimiteam rar un email, doar de Crăciun.
I rarely sent an email, only at Christmas.

So in the generic sense of rarely sent emails, the plural emailuri is the natural choice.

How is emailuri formed? Why -uri at the end?

Romanian often forms plurals of neutral loanwords by adding -uri:

un email → două emailuri
un site → două site-uri
un film → două filmuri (though more common is două filme)

In writing, you will sometimes see email-uri, with a hyphen, especially in older texts or more careful writing about foreign words. Nowadays both emailuri and email-uri are used; emailuri (no hyphen) is very common in informal writing.

So emailuri is simply emails (the plural form).

Why is there no article before emailuri? Why not Trimiteam rar niște emailuri?

In the sentence Trimiteam rar emailuri, emailuri is an indefinite plural noun used in a general sense: emails (in general). Romanian often uses the bare plural with that meaning, without niște.

Trimiteam rar emailuri.
I / we rarely sent emails.

If you add niște:

Trimiteam rar niște emailuri.

it is still grammatically correct, but it sounds more like:

We rarely sent (some) emails – a bit more specific or colloquial, sometimes with the nuance of a few emails.

In neutral, general statements about habits, Romanians usually prefer the bare plural without niște.

Why do cont and parolă also have no articles? Shouldn’t it be un cont și o parolă?

Both versions are possible:

Nu aveam cont și parolă.
Nu aveam un cont și o parolă.

The difference is subtle:

Nu aveam cont și parolă.
Sounds quite natural and general:
I didn’t have an account and password (at all).
It emphasizes the lack of these things, not any specific account.
Nu aveam un cont și o parolă.
Feels a bit more concrete or specific:
I didn’t have an account and a password (set up / available to me).

In everyday speech, Romanians often drop the article with pairs like this, especially when talking about having or not having something in general: nu am timp, nu am bani, nu aveam cont și parolă.

Why is it cont și parolă, not contul și parola?

With contul / parola (definite articles), you would say:

Nu aveam contul și parola.
I didn’t have the account and the password (that specific account and password we both know about).

In the original sentence:

Nu aveam cont și parolă.

the speaker is talking about any account and password in general, not about particular ones. So the indefinite form is appropriate.

Use definite forms (contul, parola) when both speaker and listener know which specific account and password are meant.

What does pentru că mean, and is the comma before it necessary?

pentru că means because.

Trimiteam rar emailuri, pentru că nu aveam cont și parolă.
I / we rarely sent emails, because we didn’t have an account and password.

About the comma:

In Romanian, a comma is generally placed before conjunctions like pentru că, deoarece, fiindcă when they introduce a subordinate clause explaining a reason, contrast, etc.
So the comma in the sentence is correct and standard.

You could also replace pentru că with synonyms:

deoarece – more formal, but common
fiindcă – quite common, slightly more conversational

The meaning stays the same.

Could I say Nu aveam nici cont, nici parolă? What is the difference?

Yes, you can say:

Nu aveam nici cont, nici parolă.

This is a double negative construction, quite natural in Romanian, and it emphasizes the total lack of both things: I didn’t have any account or any password at all.

Differences:

Nu aveam cont și parolă.
Neutral: I / we didn’t have account and password.
Nu aveam nici cont, nici parolă.
Stronger, more emphatic: I / we had neither an account nor a password.

Both are correct; the version with nici… nici… just adds emphasis to the idea of having neither of the two.

Why is aveam (I had / we had) also in the imperfect? Could we say nu am avut cont și parolă instead?

aveam is the imperfect of a avea (to have) and here matches trimiteam, also in the imperfect:

Trimiteam rar emailuri, pentru că nu aveam cont și parolă.

Both actions are part of the same past situation / period:
During that time, you used to send emails rarely, and during the same time, you didn’t have an account and password.

You could say:

Trimiteam rar emailuri, pentru că nu am avut cont și parolă.

but it subtly changes the perspective:

nu am avut cont și parolă (perfect compus) sounds more like you’re summing up a completed fact in the past from the standpoint of now.
nu aveam cont și parolă (imperfect) describes the ongoing state in that past period.

Since trimiteam already sets a background, continuous past, it’s more natural to keep aveam in the imperfect as well.

Is pentru că nu aveam cont și parolă talking about one specific past moment or a general situation in the past?

It describes a general, ongoing situation in the past, not one specific moment.

Trimiteam rar emailuri – a habitual action.
nu aveam cont și parolă – a state that lasted during that period.

So the sentence as a whole means something like:

Back then, I / we used to rarely send emails, because at that time I / we didn’t have an account and password.

The use of the imperfect (trimiteam, aveam) supports this idea of habit / ongoing state in the past.