Learn Romanian: Câinele și pisica sunt aici. - The dog and the cat are here.

Câinele și pisica sunt aici.

The dog and the cat are here.

Breakdown of Câinele și pisica sunt aici.

to be (sunt, ești, este, suntem, sunteți, sunt)

Questions & Answers about Câinele și pisica sunt aici.

The word for cat is normally pisică. Why does it end in 'a' here as pisica?

In Romanian, the word for 'the' attaches to the end of the noun. For feminine nouns that end in -ă like pisică (cat), we drop the -ă and add -a to make it 'the'. So, pisică becomes pisica (the cat).

If -a means 'the' at the end of a word, why is 'the dog' câinele and not câinea?

The ending you use for 'the' depends on the noun's gender. Pisică is feminine, so it takes the feminine ending -a. But câine (dog) is a masculine noun. Masculine nouns that end in -e get the suffix -le to mean 'the'.

I learned that sunt means 'I am'. Why is it translated as 'are' here?

The verb a fi (to be) uses the exact same word, sunt, for both 'I am' (eu sunt) and 'they are' (ei/ele sunt). Here, the dog and the cat together act as 'they' (third-person plural), so sunt is used for 'are'.

Do I have to attach the 'the' ending to both animals, or could I just say Câinele și pisică?

You need to attach the definite article to both nouns in Romanian if both are specific animals. If you said Câinele și pisică, it would mean 'The dog and a cat' instead of 'The dog and the cat'.