Breakdown of Schiurile sunt noi, le-am cumpărat ieri.
fi
to be (sunt, ești, este, suntem, sunteți, sunt)
avea
to have
nou
new
cumpăra
to buy
le
them (f/n, direct object)
ieri
yesterday
schiul
the ski
Questions & Answers about Schiurile sunt noi, le-am cumpărat ieri.
Why does the word schi change to schiurile to mean the skis?
Schi is a neuter noun. In the plural, many neuter nouns take the ending -uri, making it schiuri (skis). To say the skis, you add the neuter/feminine plural definite article -le to the end, resulting in schiurile.
Why is the adjective for new written as noi here?
Noi is the plural form of the adjective nou (new). Because schiuri is a neuter plural noun, the adjective must match it. In Romanian, neuter plural nouns take the same adjective endings as feminine plural nouns, which gives us noi. It happens to look exactly like the pronoun noi (we), but they are simply homonyms in this context.
Why is the pronoun for them le in le-am cumpărat, instead of îi?
The pronoun needs to match the gender of the noun it replaces, which is schiurile. Since schi is a neuter noun, its plural behaves exactly like a feminine plural noun. Therefore, you must use the feminine/neuter plural direct object pronoun le. If you were talking about masculine items, you would use the masculine pronoun instead, making it i-am cumpărat.
Why are the words joined as le-am instead of written separately?
The hyphen joins the direct object pronoun le (them) with am, the helping verb for I in the past tense. In Romanian, when this pronoun meets a helping verb starting with a vowel, they are spoken together as a single syllable to make pronunciation smoother and must be written with a hyphen.
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