Cardinal numbers are the words we use for counting objects or expressing quantity.
Number name for 0 The number
0 is called . Like in English, it requires the
plural form of
nouns: "zero degrees", with being the plural form of ). Unlike English, the reading of number/numeral
0 is always and never replaced with words like
oh,
naught,
nil,
love, etc.
Numbers from 1 to 10 The number names from 1 to 10 derive from
Latin. The table below gives the
cardinal numbers in
Romanian and the three other
Eastern Romance languages (sometimes considered to be its dialects):
Aromanian,
Megleno-Romanian and
Istro-Romanian. ;Notes 1. When counting, the number names for 1 and 2 have the forms given in the table; however, when used in a sentence, they change according to the gender of the
noun they modify or replace. It is worth noting that the two adjectival forms of the cardinal number for 1 ( and ) are identical with the corresponding indefinite articles. • "one boy, a boy", • "one of the boys", • "one girl, a girl", • "one of the girls", • "two boys", • "two girls". 2. The name for number
five in Aromanian, written or , might be responsible for nicknaming the
Aromanians țințar. 3. Sometimes pronounced as (initially a regionalism), more common when communicating telephone numbers, in order to avoid a possible confusion between and . 4. In Istro-Romanian, depending on the speaker, some number names are replaced with their
Croatian (Slavic) equivalents.
Numbers from 11 to 19 Unlike all other
Romance languages, Romanian has a consistent way of naming the numbers from 11 to 19. These are obtained by joining three elements: the units, the word (derived from Latin "over", but now meaning "towards" in Romanian), and the word for "ten". For example,
fifteen is , which literally means "five over ten". This is the only exception to the
big-endian principle of number naming. The table below gives the forms of all nine such number names. Each number in the series has one or more shortened variants, often used in informal speech, where the element ' is replaced by . Prescriptive grammarians consider the informal variants to be indicative of careless speech. ;Notes 1. The number name for 12 given in the table is the masculine form; this is the only number in this range that also has a feminine form: (informal ). However, the masculine form is sometimes used even with feminine nouns, especially when the number follows the noun it determines, as in "12 o'clock" or ("12th grade", see below for ordinal numbers); such use is considered incorrect. 2. Number names for 14 and 16 do not exactly follow the forming rule, possibly under the influence of the number names for 12 and 13. The forms and do exist, but are perceived as hypercorrect and very rarely used (one might hear them in telephone conversations, for the sake of correct transmission). 3. Instead of sometimes is used. 4. The number name for 18 is notorious for being the word in Romanian with the longest
consonant cluster (five consonants with no intervening
vowels): , split into two syllables, . For this reason, the variants (with a missing ) and or (with an additional vowel to break the consonant cluster) are frequent.
Numbers from 20 to 99 The numbers in this range that are multiple of 10 (that is, 20, 30, ..., 90) are named by joining the number of tens with the word (the plural of ), as shown in the table below. Note that they are spelled as a single word. ;Notes 1. is often pronounced (but not written) . Similarly, is often pronounced . 2. does not follow the formation rule exactly. The expected form does not exist. 3. This is a direct descendant of
Latin , which did not survive in Romanian. The other numbers between 20 and 99 are named by combining three words: the number of tens, the
conjunction "and", and the units. For example, 42 is . For those numbers whose unit figure is 1 or 2 the corresponding number name has two gender-dependent forms: • masculine: "31 men"; "32 men"; • feminine: "31 women"; "32 women"; • neuter: "31 degrees"; "32 degrees".
Short versions The numbers from 20 to 99 also have an informal, simplified pronunciation: The part shortens to when the units name starts with an
unvoiced consonant or a
vowel. For 50 and 80 this contraction is incomplete, reducing only to . When the next word starts with a
voiced consonant the same rule applies except that is pronounced voiced as . The same rule applies if the units number is 0 and if the next word is the preposition . Examples: • → ("75"); • → ("51"); • → ("88"); • → ("32"); • → ("20 times"). In regional speech further simplification is possible ( becoming and becoming ). Also, the number , when it refers to the
revolutions of 1848, is pronounced , which also gave words like (meaning "participant in the Romanian 1848 Revolution" or "supporter of its ideology").
Numbers from 100 to 999 Any given number from 100 to 999 can be named by first saying the hundreds and then, without any connecting word, the two-digit number of tens and units; for example, 365 is
trei sute șaizeci și cinci. Note that the word for "hundred" is
sută, and that if the number of hundreds is 2 or larger, the plural
sute is required. The noun
sută itself is feminine and as such the numbers 100 and 200 are
o sută and
două sute. In fast utterances, the numbers 500 and 800 are usually pronounced
cinsute and
opsute, instead of the standard forms
cinci sute and
opt sute, respectively. In writing, however, the informal variants are only used for stylistic effects.
Large numbers The table below lists the numbers representing powers of 10 larger than 100, that have a corresponding single-word name. The word for 1000 is feminine, all the others are neuter; this is important in the number naming. In Romanian, neuter
nouns behave like masculine in the singular and like feminine in the plural. To say any cardinal number larger than 1000 the number is split in groups of three digits, from right to left (into units, thousands, millions, etc.), then the groups are read from left to right as in the example below. 12,345,678 (written in Romanian 12.345.678) =
douăsprezece milioane trei sute patruzeci și cinci de mii șase sute șaptezeci și opt When a digit is zero, the corresponding quantity is simply not pronounced: 101,010 (written in Romanian 101.010) =
o sută una mii zece In writing, the groups of three digits are separated by dots. The comma is used as
decimal separator. This may be confusing for native English speakers, who use the two symbols the other way around.
Decimal fractions Numbers represented as decimal fractions (for example
1.62) are expressed by reading in order the integer part, the decimal separator, and the fractional part. This is the same as in English, with the following exceptions: • The
decimal separator is the
comma, in Romanian
virgulă. For example, 2.5 is written 2,5 and pronounced
doi virgulă cinci. • The fractional part is read as a multi-digit number, not by saying each digit independently. For example, 3.14 (written 3,14) is pronounced
trei virgulă paisprezece (literally
three comma fourteen). However, when the number of decimals is too large, they can be read one by one as a string of digits:
trei virgulă unu patru unu cinci nouă (3.14159). • Decimal fractions whose integer part is 0 (such as 0.6) are always written and pronounced in Romanian together with the initial
zero: 0,6 is read
zero virgulă șase, unlike English
point six. In some situations it is customary to say
cu "with" instead of
virgulă. For example, medical staff might be heard stating the
body temperature in words like
treizeci și șapte cu cinci, meaning 37.5 °C.
Percents Percentages (%) and
permillages (‰) are read using the words
la sută and
la mie, like in the examples:
cinci la sută (5%),
nouă la mie (9‰). For percentages an alternative reading uses the neuter noun
procent, meaning 1%; the previous example becomes
cinci procente.
Negative numbers Negative numbers are named just like in English, by placing the word
minus, pronounced , at the beginning:
−10 m is
minus zece metri.
Preposition de Syntactically, when a cardinal number determines a
noun and when the number has certain values, the
preposition de (roughly equivalent to
of) is inserted between the number name and the modified noun in a way similar to English
hundreds of birds. Example:
șaizeci de minute "sixty minutes". The rules governing the use of preposition
de are as follows: • For numbers from 0 to 19
de is not used. The same applies to numbers whose last two digits make a number in the range from 1 to 19. Examples:
șapte case "seven houses",
șaisprezece ani "16 years (old)",
o sută zece metri "110 meters". • An exception to this rule is when the objects that are counted are symbols (letters, numbers). In this case, for better understanding the meaning,
de can be used, although the practice is sometimes criticized. Example:
se scrie cu doi de i "it's written with two i's",
doi de zece "two tens", "two A grades". • Another exception is for numbers whose last two digits are 01, in which case an optional
de is sometimes used. Examples:
o mie una de ori "1001 times",
o sută unu de dalmațieni "101 Dalmatians". In the latter case the choice might be influenced by
euphony (avoidance of the
alliteration). • For integer numbers from 20 to 100, preposition
de is placed between the number name and the modified noun. The same applies to numbers whose last two digits are either 00 or make a number in the range from 20 to 99. Examples:
douăzeci de metri "twenty meters",
o mie de ori "a thousand times". • In technical contexts, to save space, the preposition
de may be dropped, especially in writing:
200 metri plat "
200 meters sprint". In expressing quantities using measurement unit symbols the preposition
de is never written, but usually pronounced:
24 V →
douăzeci și patru de volți "24 V, twenty-four
volts". • For non-integer
decimal numbers
de is never used:
20,5 kg (read
douăzeci virgulă cinci kilograme, "20.5 kg"). • For negative numbers all the rules and exceptions above apply unchanged:
−20 °C is
minus douăzeci de grade Celsius,
−5 m is
minus cinci metri,
−23,4 V is
minus douăzeci și trei virgulă patru volți, etc. The preposition
de is also used within the syntax of the number itself, for stating the number of thousands, millions, billions, etc.:
douăzeci de mii "twenty thousand" (also note the plural
mii, unlike the singular
thousand in English). The rules for this
de are the same as those described above: it is used when the last two digits of the number of thousands, millions, etc. are 00 or 20–99. Again, in technical contexts, this
de may be dropped:
treizeci milioane euro "thirty million euros".
Agreement between number name and modified noun The number name and the noun it modifies must agree in
number and
gender. The rule for number agreement is simple: When the number is 1, the modified noun is put in its singular form, otherwise it takes the plural form, including the case of number 0 and all non-integer numbers. The gender agreement is somewhat complicated by the fact that the
Romanian nouns are classified into three genders: masculine, feminine, and neuter. Specifically, the neuter gender is a combination of the other two: A neuter noun behaves like a masculine noun in the singular, and like a feminine noun in the plural. The gender has implications on the morphology of some of the grammatically connected words, including the number names. When the units digit of a number is 1 or 2, its name has two distinct forms, masculine and feminine. The only exception is
unsprezece "eleven" which has only one form used for both genders. The gender agreement requires the choice of masculine number names for masculine nouns, and feminine number names for feminine nouns. For the neuter nouns the agreement is obtained by choosing the masculine name of the number not just for number 1, but for all other numbers whose units digit is 1, despite the fact that the noun behaves as feminine; for numbers whose last digit is 2 the feminine numeral is chosen. Examples: ;Note 1. Although, as a neuter noun in the plural,
scaune behaves like a feminine noun, the masculine form of the numeral
douăzeci și unu is used. This is because
unu "one" also represents a number by itself; in the singular, the neuter noun requires a masculine modifier. If the noun is also modified by an adjective, the feminine form of the adjective is used:
douăzeci și unu de scaune galbene "21 yellow chairs". ==Distributive numbers==