The Dative of Possession
When talking about actions that affect body parts, clothing, or personal belongings, Romanian rarely uses possessive adjectives (like meu or tău). Instead, it uses a dative pronoun before the verb to show who the item belongs to, while the item itself takes a definite article.
Think of it as indicating who is experiencing the action. Instead of saying "I am taking off my coat," Romanian phrasing is closer to "I take off to myself the coat."
| Owner | Dative Pronoun | Meaning |
|---|
| I | îmi | my (to me) |
| You (sg.) | îți | your (to you) |
| He / She | îi | his / her (to him/her) |
| We | ne | our (to us) |
| You (pl.) | vă | your (to you all) |
| They | le | their (to them) |
When Someone Else Does the Action
The dative pronoun always points to the owner of the object, regardless of who is doing the action. For example, if a child dirties my jacket, the sentence uses the pronoun îmi (to me); if a dog tears his shirt, it uses îi (to him).
When these pronouns are followed by a vowel—such as the auxiliary verb a avea in the past tense (am, ai, a...)—they attach to the next word with a hyphen, and some drop their final vowel.
The hyphenated forms are: mi-, ți-, i-, ne-, v-, and le-.
