# forum vs forumul | definite article



## Radrook

What's the difference between "forum" and "forumul" ?


----------



## irinet

First, welcome to our forum!
Secondly, you will always find nice persons in the forum you have just posted your dillema.
As you can see, 'forum' in my welcoming you is with 0 article, while in the second example, it is modified by the definite article 'the' - in Romanian this article is added/pasted to the noun, like '-l' ( pointing to male / neutral gender) or '-a'(female gender). Take for instance 'the house' - casa (female gender, articulated); house - casă(female gender, 0 article). 
- 'the chimney' - hornul (sg., neutral, articulated); 'chimney - horn' (0 article)
- 'the boy' - băiatul (sg.,male, articulated); 'boy - băiat' (male, 0 article)

       "Băiatul creștea văzând cu ochii."
        ("The boy was growing ...")
        "L-am văzut pe băiat ieri." - 0 article;
         ("I saw the boy yesterday".) - definite article

When nouns are in the plural, there is worse! Joking!
'-le' (female, neutral), '-i' (male)!

I would like to add that in English the definite article has nothing to do with Gender while this article is a kind of gender carrier in my language; in point of the function it has, I believe they behave similarly in both English and Romanian. Other people in this forum may think differently, however this is my opinion only. I said 'a kind of' because we cannot distinguish between male-neutral in the singular nor female-neutral in the plural forms of the noun at first sight when referring to gender.

Hope, my explanation will work for you!
And my apologies for not writing in bold or italics but I really don't know how to do it from my phone.


----------



## Radrook

Thanks! That does explain the difference very well.


Tren=train
Trenul=the train


Right?


----------



## irinet

That' s perfect.


----------



## farscape

Radrook,

Please check out the Romanian language resources listed in the forum's sticky: they will help you a lot, especially the book on grammar 

Later,
.


----------



## Radrook

Thanks for the help.
The links are very helpful as well.


----------

