Learn Romanian: Femeia ascultă muzica nouă. - The woman is listening to the new music.

The dictionary form is a asculta (to listen), which is a regular Conjugation 1 verb ending in -a. To match the "she" form for femeia (the woman), we drop the final -a and replace it with -ă, giving us ascultă.

Why does this translate to "is listening" instead of "listens"?

Romanian does not have a separate continuous tense like English does. The present tense verb ascultă can mean either "listens" (a habit) or "is listening" (happening right now). You can usually tell which one makes sense from the context.

The English translation says "listening to", so why is there no word for "to" here?

In English, we use the preposition "to" after the verb listen. In Romanian, the verb a asculta connects directly to what is being listened to without needing an extra connecting word. You literally say "listens the music" (ascultă muzica).

I learned the word for music is muzică. Why is it spelled muzica in this sentence?

Romanian attaches the word for "the" to the end of the noun. For feminine nouns ending in -ă, like muzică, you replace the -ă with an -a to mean "the music". This gives you muzica.

Wait, doesn't the word nouă mean the number nine?