Breakdown of Copilul se trezește târziu în iulie, dar în septembrie merge la școală.
dar
but
copilul
the child
în
in
târziu
late
merge
to go / to run (of a machine)
se trezi
to wake up
la
at / to
școala
the school
iulie
July
septembrie
September
Questions & Answers about Copilul se trezește târziu în iulie, dar în septembrie merge la școală.
Why is the word for "the child" written as one word, copilul, instead of two?
In Romanian, the word for "the" (called the definite article) attaches to the end of the noun instead of coming before it. Copil means "child", and adding -ul at the end makes it copilul ("the child").
Why is there a se in front of trezește?
The verb a se trezi (to wake up) is a reflexive verb in Romanian. This means the action reflects back on the subject. Literally, se trezește means "wakes himself up" (or "wakes herself up"). If you just said trezește without the se, it would mean you are waking someone else up.
Are months like iulie (July) and septembrie (September) usually written with lowercase letters?
Yes! Unlike in English, months of the year, days of the week, and seasons are not capitalized in Romanian unless they are the very first word of a sentence.
Why isn't there a subject pronoun like el (he) before merge?
Romanian is a language where you can drop the subject pronoun if it's already clear from the context. Since the sentence started with copilul (the child), we already know who is doing the going. The verb form merge (goes) tells us it's a third-person subject, so adding el isn't necessary.
Why is it la școală (to school) and not la școala (to the school)?
Just like in English, we say someone goes "to school" rather than "to the school" when referring to the general activity of attending classes. In Romanian, when you use the preposition la for this kind of routine destination, you usually use the basic noun without a "the" attached to the end.
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