Learn Romanian › ce

ce

what /tʃe/

other#10 most common

Also: which, how (in exclamations), that/which (relative)

Example sentences

Ce faci?
What are you doing? (also used as "how are you?")
Ce este asta?
What is this?
Ce vrei să mănânci?
What do you want to eat?
Nu știu ce carte să aleg.
I don't know which book to choose.
Ce frumoasă e marea azi!
How beautiful the sea is today!
Spune-mi exact ce s-a întâmplat, ca să înțeleg situația.
Tell me exactly what happened, so I understand the situation.

Word family

cevasomethingoricewhatever, anythingaltcevasomething else
de cewhy
ce fel dewhat kind of

Etymology

Ce descends from the Latin neuter interrogative pronoun quid, meaning "what". Latin quid goes back to the Proto-Indo-European interrogative stem, the same stem that produced question words across the Indo-European family. Romanian kept the word as a short, invariable form used for questions, relative clauses, and exclamations.

Learn Romanian the way that sticks.
Every word here is a full Polylex card with native audio and spaced repetition, so 4,027 words actually move into long-term memory.
Start free

More Romanian words

deof/fromto (subjunctive marker introducing a dependent clause, roughly "that")una / an (indefinite article, masculine/neuter)euItuyou (singular, informal)vreato wantînin / intothat (conjunction introducing a subordinate clause)