Breakdown of Studenta este conștientă de faptul că experimentul social este fals.
fi
to be (sunt, ești, este, suntem, sunteți, sunt)
studenta
the student
de
of / to, near (after se apropia)
că
that (conjunction)
Questions & Answers about Studenta este conștientă de faptul că experimentul social este fals.
Why do we use de faptul că here instead of just de că?
The adjective conștient (aware) requires the preposition de (aware of). In Romanian, you cannot attach a clause starting with the conjunction că (that) directly to a preposition. Saying conștientă de că is grammatically incorrect. To fix this, we insert the dummy noun phrase faptul (the fact), creating the structure de faptul că (of the fact that).
Could I just say Studenta este conștientă că... and skip de faptul completely?
Yes, in everyday spoken Romanian, people often drop both the preposition and the dummy noun, simply saying este conștientă că... (is aware that...). However, because conștient strictly pairs with the preposition de, using de faptul că is the formally correct way to link it to a full clause.
Why is it conștientă in the first half of the sentence, but fals in the second half?
Adjectives must agree in gender and number with the nouns they describe. Conștientă is feminine singular because it describes Studenta. In the second clause, fals describes experimentul. The noun experiment is neuter, and in the singular, neuter nouns take the masculine singular form of the adjective, which is fals.
What would the second clause look like if 'experiment' were plural?