# Perfect Compus



## SerinusCanaria3075

I just want to make sure that the _Compound Perfect Indicative_ (Present Perfect) in English is equivalent to the "Perfect Compus" in Romanian:

>Eu am crezut (I have believed)
>Eu am avut (I have had)

By the way, is "a avea" the only auxiliary verb?


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## CriHart

SerinusCanaria3075 said:


> I just want to make sure that the _Compound Perfect Indicative_ (Present Perfect) in English is equivalent to the "Perfect Compus" in Romanian:
> 
> >Eu am crezut (I have believed)
> >Eu am avut (I have had)
> 
> By the way, is "a avea" the only auxiliary verb?




yes, it is the only auxiliary verb


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## SerinusCanaria3075

Thank you for confirming. I'm glad Romanian does not suffer from the intransitive/transitive syndrome found in French and Italian.


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## Mallarme

SerinusCanaria3075 said:


> I just want to make sure that the _Compound Perfect Indicative_ (Present Perfect) in English is equivalent to the "Perfect Compus" in Romanian:
> 
> >Eu am crezut (I have believed)
> >Eu am avut (I have had)



I wouldn't say that it was _equivalent_... 

Eu* am crezut can also be translated as I believed.  In fact, in Romanian, the perfect compus is used where normally, in English, you would use the simple past.

Example: I saw a movie yesterday.
             Am văzut un film ieri.

There is a perfect simplu (e.g. eu crezui) but as far as I know, its use is limited to certain regions of Romania and literature. 

*By the way, as I understand it, normally, you don't state the subject pronoun unless you want to emphasize it.  You just say am crezut,

----
Please note that I'm not a native speaker of Ro.  Whoever knows more, please feel free to contradict or elaborate.


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## SerinusCanaria3075

> *By the way, as I understand it, normally, you don't state the subject pronoun unless you want to emphasize it. You just say am crezut,


Yeah, only French is the only Romance language that requires (like in English) to use the subject pronoun (je, tu, il...)



> Eu* am crezut can also be translated as I believed. In fact, in Romanian, the perfect compus is used where normally, in English, you would use the simple past.


Yeah, it happens in Italian and French as well, where they use the compound tenses but many people choose not to translate it literally:
>Io ho creduto (I have believed)
>Io credei (I believed)



> There is a perfect simplu (*e.g.* eu crezui) but as far as I know, its use is limited to certain regions of Romania and literature.


I don't know about the use of the Preterite (simple past) in Romanian. In Italian & French it's mostly literary, whereas in Spanish and Portuguese it's used almost 95% of the time (Pretérito Perfecto Simple).

By the way, what does the abb. *e.g.* stand for? I see it all the time but...


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## robbie_SWE

*E.g.* is Latin for "_exemplī grātiā_" and means "for example" (the Latin phrase literally means "example for free"). 

About the discussion concerning the Romanian Preterite. I seem to recall that it is very common in the Oltenia region. It could be compared to dialects in Italy, where some verb tenses are more common in some regions (I think it was the _Passato remoto_).

Hope this helped!

 robbie


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## happiness

I agree to Mallarme that the Romanian Perfect Compus is a tense used for past actions.

On the other hand, in Romanian there are three auxiliary verbs: a avea, a fi and a vrea.

Bye...


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## OldAvatar

Mallarme said:


> There is a perfect simplu (e.g. eu crezui) but as far as I know, its use is limited to certain regions of Romania and literature.



That's true. With the remark that it is used widely by Romanians from Oltenia. Most of „Oltenians” are very proud of using it and they keep using it with every occasion they have. So, its „limitation” is not that strict .


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## parakseno

happiness said:


> On the other hand, in Romanian there are three auxiliary verbs: a avea, a fi and a vrea.



Indeed, Romanian has three auxiliary verbs "a avea" ("to have"), "a fi" ("to be"), "a voi" ("to want" - it's used to form the future), but I think Serinus was referring to "a avea" as the only auxiliary verb to form "perfectul compus"; which IS true. "Perfectul compus" is formed by "a avea" (in the indicative present) and the participle of the verb to be conjugated... This simple.

I'd also like to add that Romanian doesn't have so many tenses as English does, and some of the information in the English tenses has to be transmitted by other means in Romanian.

For example, the Indicative has the following past tenses:
*_Imperfectul_ - used to express an unfinished action or an action as a continuous process that took place in the past. It's the only tense that expresses duration. ("Mergeam în fiecare zi la plajă.")
*_Perfectul simplu_ - expresses a finished, past action. ("Citii ceva despre asta cu ceva timp în urmă.")
*_Perfectul compus_ - action that took place and was finished in the past, closer or farther to the moment of speech. ("Am văzut-o acum două minute."; "Anul trecut nu am fost la mare.")
*_Mai mult ca perfectul_ - an action finished before another action in the past. ("Pe când a început el, eu terminasem deja.")

As it was said earlier, "perfectul simplu" is used more just in some regions of the country ("Oltenia"), while others prefer "perfectul compus" in its stead.


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## SerinusCanaria3075

> I'd also like to add that Romanian doesn't have so many tenses as English does, and some of the information in the English tenses has to be transmitted by other means in Romanian.


Yeah, I noticed only 5 forms in the Indicative (4 simple and 1 compound) without counting the many Future forms available (5 total if I'm not mistaken). 
Compared to Spanish, Romanian only lacks the _Plusquamperfectum_ in the subjunctive (the Future subjunctive in Spanish is never used, no matter what people say) and the _Mai mult ca perfect_ is compound in English, Spanish... although Portuguese has both forms. 
[...]


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## RALUCHAN

[/QUOTE]
*_Perfectul simplu_ - expresses a finished, past action. ("Citii ceva despre asta cu ceva timp în urmă.")

As it was said earlier, "perfectul simplu" is used more just in some regions of the country ("Oltenia"), while others prefer "perfectul compus" in its stead.[/QUOTE]


* I would add: Perfectul simplu mostly appends to actions done in the _near past (e.g. last 24 hours) _so you can easily say:

Citii ceva despre asta acum 2 ore/ aseară/ acum 5 minute - it's an action just finished, thus ressembles more to the English - I have just read about _it in yestersday's newspaper / 2 hours ago_. 

but "*Citii *ceva despre asta cu ceva timp în urmă." is not totally correct because the meaning of  "cu ceva timp în urmă" is something like "quite a while ago" which contradicts the terms of use for _perfect simplu_ (action finished in the near past)


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## VeruTzZa

Perfectul Compus and Perfectul simplu are equivalent with Present Perfect simple , Past Simple, 

I haven't seen her all morning - Nu am vazut-o toata dimineata. = Nu o vazui toata dimineata.
I didn't see her this morning - Nu am vazut-o in aceasta dimineata. = nu o vazui in aceasta dimineata.


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