Learn Romanian: Îi place vacanța. - He likes the vacation.

When using the verb a plăcea (to like), Romanian flips the sentence around. Instead of saying "He likes the vacation," you literally say "To him is pleasing the vacation." The word îi is the short pronoun meaning "to him".

Could îi place also mean "she likes"?

Yes, it can mean both! Îi is the short form for both "to him" and "to her". You have to rely on the surrounding context to know if someone is talking about a man or a woman.

If îi means "to him", what is the actual subject of this sentence?

The subject is actually vacanța (the vacation). Because the literal meaning is "The vacation is pleasing to him," the verb place is in the singular form to match the subject vacanța.

Why does vacanța end in -a here?

The base dictionary word is vacanță (vacation). Because we are talking about a specific vacation, we need the word "the." In Romanian, "the" attaches to the end of feminine words, turning vacanță into vacanța.