Am verificat raportul de două ori înainte de ședință.

Am verificat is the perfect compus, the most common past tense in spoken and everyday Romanian.

It is built like this:

• am = auxiliary verb
• verificat = past participle of a verifica = to check / to verify

It is used here because the action was completed in the past. The speaker finished checking the report before the meeting.

Romanian often forms the everyday past with auxiliary + participle, much like English uses have + past participle in some structures, although the meaning here is usually just a simple past in English.

So:

• am verificat = I checked / I have checked, depending on context in English

Romanian does have other past tenses, but perfect compus is the normal choice for a finished past action in ordinary speech.

Grammatically, am verificat can mean either I checked or we checked, because am is used with both eu and noi in the compound past.

Usually, context makes it clear. If needed, Romanian can add the subject:

• Eu am verificat = I checked
• Noi am verificat = We checked

So on its own, the sentence is slightly ambiguous, but in real use that is normally not a problem.

Raportul means the report. Romanian often puts the definite article at the end of the noun instead of using a separate word like English the.

So:

• raport = a report / report
• raportul = the report

The ending -ul is the masculine/neuter singular definite article here.

Because raportul is a direct object, but it is an inanimate thing, not a person.

In Romanian, pe is often used before specific human direct objects:

• Văd profesorul can occur, but
• Îl văd pe profesor is very common because the object is a person

With things, Romanian normally does not use pe:

• Am verificat raportul = correct

So pe is not needed here.

De două ori means twice or literally two times.

Breakdown:

• de = used in this kind of frequency/count expression
• două = two
• ori = times

Romanian commonly uses de + number + ori to say how many times something happened:

• o dată = once
• de două ori = twice
• de trei ori = three times

So the de is just part of the normal Romanian pattern for this expression.

Romanian has different forms of two depending on gender:

• doi for masculine nouns
• două for feminine nouns and some neuter contexts

Here the word ori is feminine plural in this expression, so Romanian uses două:

• de două ori

That is why doi would be wrong here.

After the preposition de, Romanian often uses the noun without the definite article in expressions like this.

So:

• înainte de ședință = before the meeting
• literally closer to before meeting, but naturally translated as before the meeting

Romanian does not always match English article use exactly. Even though English needs the meeting, Romanian often prefers the simpler form after înainte de.

Yes. Înaintea ședinței is also correct and means the same thing: before the meeting.

You may see both:

• înainte de ședință
• înaintea ședinței

The first is often felt as a bit more straightforward and common in everyday usage. The second is slightly more formal or more literary in some contexts.

So the sentence could also be:

• Am verificat raportul de două ori înaintea ședinței.

No, Romanian word order is fairly flexible, although some orders sound more natural than others.

The given sentence is very natural:

• Am verificat raportul de două ori înainte de ședință.

But you could also hear:

• Am verificat de două ori raportul înainte de ședință.
• Înainte de ședință, am verificat raportul de două ori.

Changing the order can slightly change the emphasis:

• putting înainte de ședință first emphasizes the time
• putting de două ori earlier emphasizes repetition

A rough guide:

• ș sounds like sh in ship
• ț sounds like ts in cats
• ă is a short central vowel, somewhat like the a in sofa
• ședință is roughly she-DIN-tsuh
• două is roughly DOH-uh

Also:

• raportul is roughly ra-POR-tul
• verificat is roughly ve-ri-fi-KAT

Romanian stress is important, so listening to native audio is very helpful here.

The base form is a verifica, which means to check or to verify.

In this sentence:

• a verifica = infinitive
• verificat = past participle

So:

• Am verificat = I checked / I have checked

In the perfect compus, the past participle usually stays the same and does not agree with the direct object.

So Romanian says:

• Am verificat raportul
• Am verificat scrisoarea
• Am verificat documentele

The participle verificat stays the same in all of these.

That is different from some other Romance languages, and it is a useful pattern to remember.