Breakdown of Îți recomand să nu consumi zahăr seara.
nu
no / not
îți
to you (singular)
să
to (subjunctive marker)
seara
the evening
Questions & Answers about Îți recomand să nu consumi zahăr seara.
Where exactly do we put the negative word nu in a subjunctive sentence like this?
To make a subjunctive phrase negative, you must place nu directly between the connecting word să and the verb. It acts like a single block: să nu consumi (that you do not consume). Nothing can separate these three words!
Why does the sentence start with Îți instead of Te?
Îți is an indirect object pronoun meaning 'to you'. The verb a recomanda (to recommend) requires an indirect object for the person receiving the advice. If you used the direct object te, it would mean you are recommending the actual person (like for a job), rather than giving advice to them.
Is the verb consumi in a special subjunctive form here?
Yes, because it follows să, but it looks identical to the regular present tense. For almost all Romanian verbs, the 'you' (second-person singular) form is exactly the same in both the present tense (tu consumi) and the subjunctive (să consumi). The subjunctive mostly takes a special ending for the 'he/she/they' forms.
Why is seara translated as 'in the evening' instead of 'the evening'?
In Romanian, parts of the day are used with their definite article to indicate that something happens regularly at that time. So, while seara literally means 'the evening', in this context it acts as an adverb meaning 'in the evening' or 'every evening'.