Learn Hardcore Romanian: Când sora mea era bolnavă, doctorița și asistenta veneau mereu la noi acasă. - When my sister was sick, the female doctor and the nurse always came to our home.

Când sora mea era bolnavă suggests a state that could happen multiple times or last for a while – “when(ever) my sister was ill / used to be ill”.

If you said Când sora mea a fost bolnavă, you would normally refer to one specific episode in the past: “When my sister was ill (that time)…”.

So era fits better because the sentence describes a general situation or habit in the past, not a one‑off event.

Why is veneau used instead of au venit?

Same tense contrast as above:

veneau – imperfect: “they used to come / they would come”
au venit – perfect compus: “they came (once / on that occasion)”

doctorița și asistenta veneau mereu means the coming was habitual: “the doctor and the nurse would always come / used to come”.

If you said:

doctorița și asistenta au venit la noi acasă, it sounds like a single, completed visit: “the doctor and the nurse came to our house (once)”.

Why is the verb veneau plural if doctorița and asistenta are each singular?

In Romanian, when two singular nouns are joined by și (and), they form a plural subject, so the verb must also be plural.

Subject: doctorița și asistenta → “the doctor and the nurse” = they
Verb: veneau = 3rd person plural imperfect of a veni (“to come”)

Compare:

Doctorița venea la noi acasă. – “The (female) doctor used to come to our house.”
Asistenta venea la noi acasă. – “The (female) nurse used to come to our house.”
Doctorița și asistenta veneau la noi acasă. – “The doctor and the nurse used to come to our house.”

Does când here mean “when” or “whenever”?

Literally it is “when”, but the combination când + imperfect often has the sense of “whenever / every time that”.

So:

Când sora mea era bolnavă, doctorița și asistenta veneau mereu…

can naturally be understood as:

“Whenever my sister was ill, the doctor and the nurse would always come to our house.”

If you want to make the “whenever” meaning completely explicit, you can say:

De fiecare dată când sora mea era bolnavă, … – “Every time my sister was ill, …”

Why is it bolnavă and not bolnav?

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

The adjective “ill, sick” is:

masculine singular: bolnav
feminine singular: bolnavă
masculine plural: bolnavi
feminine plural: bolnave

The noun soră (“sister”) is feminine singular, so you must use bolnavă:

sora mea era bolnavă – “my sister was ill”

Other examples:

fratele meu era bolnav – “my brother was ill” (masculine singular)
frații mei erau bolnavi – “my brothers were ill” (masculine plural)
fetele erau bolnave – “the girls were ill” (feminine plural)

Why is it sora mea, not mea sora?

With possessive adjectives like mea (my), ta (your), lui / ei (his / her), noastră (our), voastră (your), lor (their), the normal structure is:

noun + definite article + possessive

So you say:

sora mea – my sister
fratele tău – your brother
cartea lor – their book

You do not say *mea soră in ordinary speech.

There is a different, emphatic structure like o soră de-a mea (“a sister of mine”), but that’s a different pattern, not just a word order change for sora mea.

Why do we have definite forms sora, doctorița, asistenta, but not an article on acasă?

Romanian uses a suffixed definite article:

soră → sora – the sister
doctoriță → doctorița – the (female) doctor
asistentă → asistenta – the (female) nurse

In the sentence we are talking about specific, known people:

my sister
the doctor
the nurse

So they all appear with the definite form.

acasă, however, is not used here as a normal noun; it functions as an adverb meaning “(at) home”. Adverbs don’t take articles, so you don’t see anything like *acasăa.

If you wanted a literal noun “house”, you’d use casă / casa instead, e.g.:

la casa noastră – “to our house”

What does la noi acasă literally mean, and why use both la noi and acasă?

Literally, la noi acasă is something like:

“at us, at home”

But idiomatically it means:

“at our place / at our house / at our home.”

Pieces:

la noi = “at our place, at our home (chez nous)”
– noi is “we / us”, but with la it works like French chez nous.
acasă = “at home”

Using both together (la noi acasă) strongly reinforces the idea of our home (not the hospital, not their office).

You could also say:

veneau la noi – “they came to our place”
veneau acasă la noi – “they came to our home”

All are natural; la noi acasă is just a very common, idiomatic way to say “to our house”.

Can I say Când sora mea a fost bolnavă, doctorița și asistenta au venit la noi acasă? What changes?

Yes, that sentence is grammatically correct, but the meaning changes.

Imperfect version (original):
Când sora mea era bolnavă, doctorița și asistenta veneau mereu la noi acasă.
→ Describes a habitual / repeated situation in the past.
“Whenever my sister was ill, the doctor and the nurse would always come to our house.”
Perfect compus version (your variant):
Când sora mea a fost bolnavă, doctorița și asistenta au venit la noi acasă.
→ Sounds like one specific period of illness and one (or a specific series of) visit(s) in that context.
“When my sister was ill (on that occasion), the doctor and the nurse came to our house.”

You can even mix tenses:

Când sora mea era bolnavă, doctorița și asistenta au venit la noi acasă.

Here era gives a background state (she was ill), and au venit is a single, foreground event (they came once).

But the original sentence with both verbs in the imperfect + mereu clearly points to a regular pattern in the past.

Where can mereu go in the sentence? Does the position change the emphasis?

Common, natural positions include:

Neutral:
- doctorița și asistenta veneau mereu la noi acasă.
  (This is the standard choice.)
Emphasizing always (spoken style):
- doctorița și asistenta mereu veneau la noi acasă.
- Mereu veneau doctorița și asistenta la noi acasă.
Also acceptable:
- doctorița și asistenta veneau la noi acasă mereu.

They are all grammatical. Moving mereu toward the beginning of the clause (Mereu veneau…) tends to emphasize the idea of “always” a bit more.

Why is there a comma after bolnavă?

Când sora mea era bolnavă is a subordinate adverbial clause of time (“when my sister was ill…”).

In Romanian punctuation, when a subordinate clause comes before the main clause, it is usually separated by a comma:

Când sora mea era bolnavă, doctorița și asistenta veneau mereu la noi acasă.
Dacă plouă, nu ieșim. – “If it rains, we’re not going out.”

If the subordinate clause comes after the main clause, the comma is often still used but can be more optional depending on length and style:

Doctorița și asistenta veneau mereu la noi acasă, când sora mea era bolnavă.

How do you pronounce some of these words, especially ă and ț?

Approximate pronunciations for an English speaker:

Când – roughly “kənd”; the â is similar to a darker “uh” sound, central and tense.
sora – “SO-ra” (stress on SO).
mea – “meh-ah” (often blended, almost like “meh-ya”).
era – “eh-RA” (stress on RA).
bolnavă – “bol-NA-vă” (stress on NA; ă like the “a” in “sofa”).
doctorița – “dok-to-REE-tsa” (stress on REE; ț = “ts” as in cats).
asistenta – “a-sis-TEN-ta” (stress on TEN).
veneau – roughly “veh-NYOW” (one stressed syllable; eau like “yow”).
acasă – “a-KA-sə” (stress on KA; final ă again like “a” in “sofa”).

Key sounds:

ă – like the unstressed “a” in English “sofa”.
â / î – a similar “uh” sound but more centralized and tense; Romanian treats â and î as the same sound.
ț – like “ts” in English “cats”, but written as a single letter.