Sunt unsprezece chiriași.

Here sunt is the 3rd person plural form of a fi (to be).

In this sentence, it is best understood as there are, not they are.

So:

• Sunt unsprezece chiriași. = There are eleven tenants.

Romanian often uses sunt in places where English uses there are. There is no separate word exactly like English there in this kind of sentence.

Unsprezece means eleven.

It is historically built from:

• unu / un = one
• spre = an old element meaning something like toward / over
• zece = ten

So it literally comes from the idea of one over ten.

For a learner, the important thing is simply:

• unsprezece = 11

Because unsprezece is greater than one, Romanian uses the plural noun:

• un chiriaș = one tenant
• doi chiriași = two tenants
• unsprezece chiriași = eleven tenants

So after 11, the noun is plural, just as in English.

The singular is:

• chiriaș = tenant (masculine singular)

The plural is:

• chiriași = tenants (masculine plural)

So the sentence is using the plural form.

Because Romanian normally does not use an indefinite article with plural count nouns after numbers.

Compare:

• un chiriaș = a tenant
• doi chiriași = two tenants
• unsprezece chiriași = eleven tenants

You do not say unsprezece niște chiriași or anything like eleven the tenants here.

The noun appears as an indefinite plural after the number.

The correct spelling is chiriași, with ș.

That letter ș represents the sh sound, like in English ship.

So:

• ș = sh
• s = a regular s sound

Without the diacritic, the word is misspelled in standard Romanian.

A rough pronunciation is:

• Sunt ≈ soont
• unsprezece ≈ oon-spreh-ZEH-che
• chiriași ≈ kee-ree-AHSH

So the full sentence is approximately:

• soont oon-spreh-ZEH-che kee-ree-AHSH

A few notes:

• u in Romanian is usually like oo in food
• ce at the end of unsprezece sounds like che in check, but softer
• și sounds like sh + ee

Yes, chiriași is the masculine plural form.

The forms are:

• chiriaș = male tenant
• chiriașă = female tenant
• chiriași = male tenants / mixed-gender tenants
• chiriașe = female tenants

So:

• Sunt unsprezece chiriași. = there are eleven male or mixed tenants
• Sunt unsprezece chiriașe. = there are eleven female tenants

As in many Romance languages, the masculine plural is also used for mixed groups.

Grammatically, Romanian allows flexible word order, but Sunt unsprezece chiriași is the normal, neutral way to say There are eleven tenants.

• Sunt unsprezece chiriași. = neutral statement
• Unsprezece chiriași sunt... = possible, but it usually sounds more marked or contrastive, as if you are emphasizing eleven tenants specifically

So if you just want to state existence, use:

• Sunt unsprezece chiriași.

It is indefinite.

Chiriași here means tenants in a general sense, not the tenants.

If you wanted a definite form, Romanian would mark that on the noun, but after numbers this works differently and is less straightforward. In this sentence, the meaning is simply:

• There are eleven tenants not
• There are the eleven tenants

So learners should understand chiriași here as an indefinite plural noun.

You may sometimes see sînt in older texts, some publications, or personal preference, but the current standard spelling is:

• sunt

So for modern standard Romanian, this sentence should be written:

• Sunt unsprezece chiriași.

No. In this kind of existential sentence, Romanian uses the verb to be:

• Sunt unsprezece chiriași.

English uses there are, but Romanian does not copy that structure with a separate word for there. So even though the English translation contains are, the Romanian pattern is simply built with sunt.

In normal usage, no. Without context, the natural interpretation is:

• There are eleven tenants.

If Romanian wanted to clearly say They are eleven tenants, it would usually need more context, and even then that would sound unusual in English too.

So for a learner, the safe reading is definitely the existential one:

• Sunt unsprezece chiriași. = There are eleven tenants.