Ieri am văzut un semafor stricat și am așteptat lângă el.

These are forms of the very common Romanian past tense called the perfectul compus.

It is built with:

• the auxiliary a avea in the present tense
• plus the past participle of the main verb

So:

• am văzut = I saw / I have seen
• am așteptat = I waited / I have waited

In this sentence, Romanian uses this tense for completed actions in the past, just as English often uses the simple past.

Am is the 1st person singular form of the auxiliary verb a avea used in the compound past.

So in:

• am văzut
• am așteptat

the word am tells you the subject is I.

That is why Romanian can leave out the pronoun eu. The verb form already makes the subject clear.

Ieri means yesterday. It is placed first for a very natural reason: Romanian often puts time expressions near the beginning of the sentence.

So:

• Ieri am văzut... = Yesterday I saw...

This is completely normal word order. Romanian is fairly flexible, but starting with ieri is one of the most common ways to say it.

Un semafor means a traffic light, so it is indefinite.

Romanian distinguishes between:

• un semafor = a traffic light
• semaforul = the traffic light

Since the sentence is introducing it as something not previously identified, Romanian uses the indefinite form un semafor.

In Romanian, adjectives often come after the noun.

So:

• un semafor stricat = a broken traffic light

This is the usual order in Romanian, even though English normally puts the adjective before the noun.

Compare:

• English: a broken traffic light
• Romanian: un semafor stricat

Stricat agrees with semafor.

A useful thing to know is that semafor is a neuter noun in Romanian. Neuter nouns behave:

• like masculine in the singular
• like feminine in the plural

Because semafor is singular, the adjective takes the singular masculine/neuter form:

• semafor stricat

If it were plural, you would get:

• semafoare stricate

Because Romanian normally repeats the auxiliary with each verb in the compound past.

So:

• am văzut = I saw
• și am așteptat = and I waited

Even though English can sometimes avoid repetition, Romanian usually keeps it:

• Ieri am văzut un semafor stricat și am așteptat lângă el.

That is the natural standard structure.

After a preposition such as lângă meaning near / beside, Romanian normally uses the stressed pronoun form.

So:

• lângă el = near it / near him

You cannot normally use the short unstressed object pronoun directly after a preposition here. The full form el is the correct one.

In Romanian, pronouns follow grammatical gender, not natural gender.

Semafor is a neuter noun, but in the singular neuter nouns behave like masculine nouns. That is why the pronoun is:

• el in the singular

So lângă el means near it, even though the actual pronoun form is the same as him.

Lângă is a preposition meaning:

• near
• beside
• next to

So:

• lângă el = near it / beside it

In this sentence, it shows where the speaker waited.

Yes, but eu is not necessary here.

Romanian often drops subject pronouns because the verb already shows the person:

• am văzut already means I saw
• am așteptat already means I waited

You would add eu only for emphasis, contrast, or clarity:

• Eu am văzut un semafor stricat, nu ea. = I saw a broken traffic light, not she did.

In the original sentence, leaving out eu is the most natural choice.

Și means and.

It connects the two past actions:

• am văzut = I saw
• am așteptat = I waited

So the sentence has two coordinated verbs:

• Ieri am văzut un semafor stricat și am așteptat lângă el.

This is exactly parallel to English and.

Yes, a few:

• ieri: roughly yeri, with ie sounding like ye
• văzut: ă is a short central vowel, similar to the weak vowel in sofa
• și: the ș sounds like English sh
• lângă: again, ă is that short central vowel
• semafor: stress is natural and fairly clear, but Romanian spelling is generally phonetic

The diacritics matter:

• ă
• â
• ș

Without them, pronunciation and sometimes meaning can become unclear.