Learn Romanian: Lucrezi mai productiv decât șeful. - You work more productively than the boss.

Lucrezi mai productiv decât șeful.

You work more productively than the boss.

Breakdown of Lucrezi mai productiv decât șeful.

more / still (adverb)

decât

than

Questions & Answers about Lucrezi mai productiv decât șeful.

Why does productiv look like an adjective when it translates to the English adverb "productively"?

In Romanian, you usually do not need a special ending like "-ly" to turn an adjective into an adverb. You just use the standard masculine singular form of the adjective. So productiv can mean both "productive" and "productively" depending on the context.

How do you build the "more ... than" comparison in this sentence?

To say "more productively", you place mai right before the adverb, making mai productiv. For the word "than", you use decât. The standard structure for "more X than Y" is always mai X decât Y.

I have seen ca used in comparisons. Can I use it instead of decât here?

In standard Romanian, decât is specifically used for comparisons of inequality, meaning when something is "more" (mai) or "less" (mai puțin) than something else. You use ca when comparing things that are exactly equal, such as la fel de productiv ca which means "as productive as".

Why does the word for boss have -ul at the end?

The base word for boss is șef. Because the sentence specifically says "the boss", we need to attach the definite article. For masculine nouns ending in a consonant, Romanian adds -ul to the very end of the word, giving us șeful.