Breakdown of Profesorul preferă să bea un espresso fără zahăr.
un
a / an (m/n)
profesorul
the teacher
bea
to drink
să
to (subjunctive marker)
fără
without / to (telling time)
zahărul
the sugar
prefera
to prefer
espressoul
the espresso
Questions & Answers about Profesorul preferă să bea un espresso fără zahăr.
Since English uses the infinitive "to drink", why does Romanian use the subjunctive să bea here, and is the infinitive ever an option?
Romanian strongly prefers the subjunctive (să + verb) over the infinitive after verbs expressing preference, desire, or intention, like a prefera, a vrea, or a dori. While you might encounter the infinitive in very formal or older literary texts, in modern everyday Romanian, preferă să bea is the only natural choice.
The word espresso is a foreign loanword. How does Romanian handle its gender and plural forms?
Like many foreign loans describing inanimate objects, espresso is treated as a neuter noun. It takes the masculine article in the singular (un espresso) and the feminine in the plural. For the plural, you will hear both the unadapted form două espresso and the Romanianized form două espressouri, with the latter being very common in everyday speech.
Why is there no article on the word zahăr after the preposition fără?
The preposition fără (without) is typically followed by a bare noun with no article when referring to something in a general, uncountable sense, such as zahăr (sugar) or lapte (milk). You only use a definite article after fără if you are referring to a specific, previously defined item, such as fără zahărul pe care l-ai cumpărat (without the sugar you bought).
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