Adjectival gerunds

Painting a Picture with Gerunds

In Romanian, the gerund (words usually ending in -ând or -ind, similar to the English "-ing") is typically an invariable verb form. However, when you want to describe an ongoing state to create poetic or vivid imagery, the gerund can act just like an adjective.

Unlike standard gerunds, these adjectival gerunds (Gerunziul acordat) must agree in gender and number with the noun they modify.

For masculine and neuter singular nouns, the adjectival gerund looks exactly like the standard base gerund.

Feminine Singular Agreement

To describe a feminine singular noun, you simply add the standard feminine adjective ending -ă to the base gerund, resulting in -ândă or -indă.

Plural Forms

When describing plural nouns, the adjectival gerund changes its ending to match both gender and number:

• Feminine and Neuter Plural: Add -e to the base gerund, resulting in -ânde or -inde.
• Masculine Plural: Add -i. Notice that the final d in the gerund changes to a z when the -i is added, resulting in -ânzi or -inzi.