Breakdown of Studenții sunt inteligenți.
fi
to be (sunt, ești, este, suntem, sunteți, sunt)
studentul
the student
inteligent
intelligent
Questions & Answers about Studenții sunt inteligenți.
Why does studenții end with two i's, but inteligenți only ends with one?
This is the difference between a plain plural and a 'the' plural! For masculine words, adding one -i makes it plural. So, student becomes studenți (students), and inteligent becomes inteligenți (intelligent). To say 'the' students, Romanian adds a second -i to the end of the noun, making it studenții. The adjective inteligenți only needs one -i because it just has to show it is plural, not definite.
How do I pronounce the single -i versus the double -ii?
A single -i at the end of a word like inteligenți is usually 'whispered' - you barely hear it as a vowel, it mostly just softens the consonant before it (turning the 't' into a 'ts' sound). But when you add the second -i for the definite article, like in studenții, that final sound becomes a full, clear vowel, pronounced like the 'ee' in the English word 'see'.
Wait, doesn't sunt mean 'I am'? Why is it translated as 'are' here?
Would the endings change if we were talking about female students?
Yes, everything would change to match the feminine gender! 'The female students' is studentele. The adjective would also change to its feminine plural form, inteligente. So the whole sentence would be: Studentele sunt inteligente.
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