Learn Romanian: Câinele are o ureche murdară.

In Romanian, the word for "the" (the definite article) attaches to the end of the noun. Câine means "dog", and adding -le makes it câinele ("the dog"). The -le ending is used for masculine nouns that end in the letter e.

How do we know the gender of ureche (ear) from this sentence?

You can spot its gender by looking at the word for "a" right before it. It uses o, which is the feminine form of "a" or "an". If it were masculine or neuter, it would use un.

Why is the word order o ureche murdară (an ear dirty) instead of o murdară ureche?

In Romanian, adjectives (descriptive words like dirty, big, or red) almost always come after the noun they describe. This is the opposite of English!

Why does murdară end with the letter ă?

Adjectives must match the gender of the noun they describe. The base masculine word for "dirty" is murdar. Because ureche is feminine, we add the feminine ending -ă to make it murdară.