Breakdown of Familia întreagă a venit la masă.
masa
the table
avea
to have
familia
the family
la
at / to
veni
to come / to feel like (dative + vine să)
întreg
whole, entire
Questions & Answers about Familia întreagă a venit la masă.
Why does the adjective întreagă come after the noun here, and could I say întreaga familie?
Yes, you can say întreaga familie! When the adjective întreg (entire/whole) is placed before the noun, it takes the definite article (întreaga) and the noun drops it (familie). In this sentence, the noun comes first and keeps the article (familia), so the adjective just follows normally (întreagă).
Could I use toată instead of întreagă to say "the whole family"?
Yes, toată familia is another very common way to say this. The main difference is that toată (all) almost always comes before the noun, and the noun keeps the definite article (familia), whereas întreagă (entire) can comfortably go after it.
Why is the verb a venit in the singular when a family is made up of multiple people?
Why is it la masă without the definite article, since the English translation says "to the table"?
In Romanian, nouns immediately following simple prepositions like la (at/to), în (in), or pe (on) usually drop their definite article. Since masă stands alone here without any adjectives describing it, it drops the article -a, even though we translate it as "the table".
Does la masă just mean walking up to the physical piece of furniture?
It means "to the table", but idiomatically it implies "to the meal" or "to eat". When you say a group came la masă, it usually means they sat down to have a meal together.
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