Numbers 0–100, your age, and the three question words

Topic

Three at once: numerals (3 aspects total), the pronoun system (8 sub-systems), and the lexical domain countries, professions, personal data

This section

Numbers 0–100: complete — every number in that range is derivable after this page · Interrogatives cine / ce / cum: complete for those three · Age: complete

Coverage

Numerals 1 of 3 · Pronouns 2 of 8 (subject pronouns were U01)

Deferred

telling time, days, months → U06 · numbers 100+, prices, quantities → U08 · cui (whose / to whom) → U12 · possessive pronouns → U04 · reflexive pronouns → U06 · relative care / pe care → U22 · ordinals (primul, al doilea) → after the possessive article, U04+

Serves

L (ages, phone numbers, addresses — the classic listening item) · S part 1 · W form-filling · R

1 and 2 have a masculine and a feminine form — the only two building blocks that do (12 and compounds ending in 1 or 2 inherit it). un student / o studentă, doi studenți / două studente. Every other number is one shape forever.

nouă is three words at once: nine, new (feminine), and to us. Context separates them; nothing to do but know it.

The machine: digit + spre + zece. spre = "toward", zece = "ten". So unsprezece is literally one-toward-ten — and Ukrainian одинадцять is literally один-на-дцять, one-on-ten. Same construction, different bricks. You already own this idea.

Two contractions (highlighted above): paisprezece, not patrusprezece; șaisprezece, not șasesprezece. Spoken Romanian also shortens all of these to -șpe — unșpe, doișpe, treișpe. You will hear that constantly and must never write it.

Only 12 has two genders here, because doi / două is one of the two numerals that inflect: doisprezece băieți (12 boys) but douăsprezece fete (12 girls). Nothing stands between the numeral and the counted noun in the teens, so the noun decides. The feminine is the one you will hear most — ora douăsprezece, twelve o'clock, because oră is feminine.

The machine: digit + zeci ("tens"). douăzeci = two tens, exactly like UA двадцять = два-дцять. One contraction again: șaizeci, not șasezeci.

Why douăzeci and not doizeci. A numeral agrees with the noun immediately to its right — and here that noun is zeci, which is feminine (plural of zece). So it is literally două zeci, "two tens". Same reason 100 is o sută and 200 is două sute. And because două is agreeing with zeci, the thing you are actually counting is too far away to change it: douăzeci de băieți and douăzeci de fete are identical.

Why o sută. sută is not a numeral at all — it is a feminine noun meaning "a hundred-unit", and nouns take an article. That o is the same ordinary feminine "a" as in o carte (a book). English agrees — "a hundred people" — and Ukrainian does not: «сто людей» is bare. English is the helper here. Note the ending: sută, the feminine -ă; a Romanian word can never end in â, which only ever appears inside a word.

In compounds the last element is the one touching the noun, so that is the one that inflects: douăzeci și doi de ani · douăzeci și două de zile · douăzeci și una de fete (twenty-one girls — una, the feminine of unu, surfaces here too). From trei upward no numeral has genders at all, so this question disappears after two words.

Everything in between is joined with și ("and") — obligatory, never dropped: douăzeci și unu = 21, patruzeci și cinci = 45, nouăzeci și nouă = 99. Neither English nor Ukrainian puts a word there.

Within 0–100 — this page's range — the rule is exact: from 20 up, de, always: 21 de ani, 99 de ani, and still 1000 de ani (o mie de ani, a thousand years). Above 100 it is the last block that decides: when the final tens-and-units part is 1–19, the noun returns to bare — o sută unu ani (a hundred and one years), no de. You first meet that at 101, in U08. Nothing in English or Ukrainian does this. It is a pure memorization item and it is everywhere in the Reading+Grammar section.

Literally: "I have thirty years" and "how many years do you have?" — the a avea you learned yesterday, doing its second job.

Pronunciation: ce and cine both start with the sound of English church — [tʃe] and [tʃi-ne], per the ce/ci rule from U01: Romanian spells that sound as a bare c before e/i. Never write it ch — Romanian ch is always [k], the reverse of the English spelling habit. cum has a hard [k].

All three sit at the front of the sentence and change nothing else — no auxiliary, no inversion. Ce faci? (what are you doing? / how are you?, informal) Cine este? Cum te numești?

Working alongside them, named but not systematized today: unde (where), când (when), de ce (why), câți / câte (how many, m / f).

Age: the third time Romanian keeps a verb your languages delete

English uses be and throws away "years". Ukrainian uses no verb at all and marks you with the dative мені. Romanian uses a plain transitive verb, keeps "years", and adds de. Three languages, three machines — and Romanian's is the only one where a real verb does the work.

✗ Sunt treizeci ani — the English calque, and it is the single most common beginner sentence in this unit. ✓ Am treizeci de ani.

Cum te numești? — Ukrainian is right and English is the saboteur

Romanian asks how you call yourself, not what your name is — and so does Ukrainian, with як. ✗ Ce te numești? is the English calque. Trust як → cum.

This also unfreezes the chunk. The question and the answer are not the same string — they differ in exactly one particle:

te = yourself · vă = yourself (formal) · mă = myself — the verb is a se numi, to name oneself. Same particle slot, three fillers. The full reflexive system is U06; these three are enough for now.

și in the middle, de after 20 — two insertions with no analogue

Both of your other languages build 45 by simply putting two words side by side: EN forty-five, UA сорок п'ять. Romanian inserts a word: patruzeci și cinci. Then, if a noun follows, it inserts a second one: patruzeci și cinci de ani. Two extra words English and Ukrainian never make you say — and dropping either is audible immediately.

Câți ani ai? — Am douăzeci și opt de ani.

How old are you? — I am twenty-eight.
Câți ani = "how many years". ai = you have. Answer: am (I have) + douăzeci și opt (20 and 8) + de (28 is over 20) + ani. Every rule on this page fires in one seven-word sentence.

Cine este? — Este un coleg. Ce face? — Este programator.

Who is it? — It's a colleague. What does he do? — He's a programmer.
Cine for the person, ce for the activity. Note the two articles: un coleg takes one (an ordinary noun), programator takes none — the bare-profession rule from yesterday, still holding.

Locuiesc pe strada Independenței, la numărul șaptesprezece.

I live on Independence Street, at number seventeen.
Locuiesc = I live (memorize the form; the verb group is U06). 17 is under 20, so no de — numărul șaptesprezece, not numărul de șaptesprezece. The -ul on numărul and the -ei on Independenței are the article and genitive systems, U05 and U12 — read them, don't build them yet.

• cui — "whose / to whom", the genitive-dative of cine. Exists, is common, arrives with the case system in U12.
• care — "which", and later the relative "who/that". U22.
• Ordinals — primul, al doilea (first, second). They need the possessive article al/a/ai/ale, which is U04.
• Numbers above 100, prices, quantities — U08.
• Time, days, months — the other big consumer of numbers — U06.
• locuiesc is given as a fixed form. Its verb group (-i verbs) is U06.
• Plurals in today's word list (ani, zile, străzi) are facts to memorize. The system that predicts them is U03, next session.
• lei — the Romanian currency, used above as a counting example only. Money vocabulary is U08.