Learn Romanian: Sora are o carte. - The sister has a book.

a avea is an irregular verb, meaning its forms do not follow a predictable pattern. are is the form used for 'he', 'she', or 'it'. Since sora (the sister) is a 'she', we use are. For comparison, 'I have' would be eu am.

I learned that the word for sister is soră. Why is it spelled sora in this sentence?

In Romanian, the word for 'the' attaches to the end of the noun instead of coming before it as a separate word. For feminine nouns ending in -ă, like soră (sister), that last letter changes to -a to mean 'the'. So, sora translates to 'the sister'.

Why do we use o before carte instead of un?

The word carte (book) is a feminine noun. In Romanian, you must match the word for 'a' or 'an' to the gender of the noun. We use o for feminine nouns, while un is used for masculine and neuter nouns.