Learn Romanian: Femeia are gâtul frumos. - The woman has a beautiful neck.

Femeia are gâtul frumos.

The woman has a beautiful neck.

Breakdown of Femeia are gâtul frumos.

beautiful / beautifully

gâtul

the neck

Questions & Answers about Femeia are gâtul frumos.

Why does it say gâtul (the neck) instead of un gât (a neck)?

In Romanian, when talking about body parts belonging to a specific person, it is standard to use the definite article (the) rather than the indefinite article (a or an). So literally, this sentence translates to 'The woman has the neck beautiful.'

Why is frumos placed after gâtul?

In Romanian, adjectives usually come immediately after the noun they describe. Because of this rule, we say gâtul frumos (literally 'the neck beautiful') rather than putting the adjective first like in English.

How does the word femeia get its meaning of 'the woman'?

The base dictionary word for 'woman' is femeie. In Romanian, the word for 'the' is attached to the end of the noun. For feminine nouns ending in -e, we drop the -e and add -ea to mean 'the', giving us femeia.

How can we tell that gât is not a feminine noun based on this sentence?

We can tell by looking at both the noun ending and the adjective! The -ul ending on gâtul is the word 'the' for masculine and neuter nouns. The adjective frumos is also in its masculine/neuter singular form, because it must match the noun it describes.