Cât, câtă, câți, and câte

Romanian uses cât, câtă, câți, and câte to ask about quantity: Câte bilete cumperi? (How many tickets are you buying?) The form agrees with the noun when a noun is named.

How do you choose the form?

Use singular cât or câtă with a mass or uncountable noun, and plural câți or câte with a countable plural noun; then match gender and number.

What is the difference between how much and how many?

Use the singular forms for something measured as a substance, amount, or general quantity: cât lapte (how much milk) and câtă pâine (how much bread). Use the plural forms for separate countable items or people: câți oameni (how many people) and câte cărți (how many books).

• The same four forms can stand alone when the noun is understood: Cât vrei? (How much do you want?), Câtă mai vrei? (How much more do you want?), Câți au venit? (How many came?), and Câte au rămas? (How many are left?)
• Use the masculine plural form with a masculine plural noun: câți studenți (how many students) and câți oameni (how many people).
• Use câte with a feminine plural noun and with a neuter plural noun: câte persoane (how many people) and câte exerciții (how many exercises). Gender is grammatical, not a judgment about the people or things being counted.

Where does the noun go?

Put the quantity word directly before the noun it quantifies. In this basic pattern, the noun follows without an article: câte bilete, not câte biletele and not câte niște bilete.

Why does neuter gender use two patterns?

A neuter noun uses the masculine agreement pattern in the singular and the feminine agreement pattern in the plural. That is why you say cât timp with the singular neuter noun timp and câte scaune with the plural neuter noun scaune. See Romanian noun gender for the wider agreement pattern.

What happens when no noun follows?

When cât asks about price, duration, or an understood amount, it stays in the form cât: Cât costă biletul? (How much does the ticket cost?) and Cât durează filmul? (How long does the film last?) When the understood noun is plural, use câți or câte: Câți au răspuns? (How many answered?) or Câte au rămas? (How many are left?)

What word order is neutral?

Place the full quantity phrase near the beginning, then use the ordinary finite verb. Romanian does not add an English-style auxiliary do: Câte mesaje ai trimis? (How many messages did you send?)

• When the quantity phrase is the subject, it normally comes before the verb: Câți studenți au venit? (How many students came?)
• When another subject is named, the verb can come before that subject: Cât costă cafeaua? (How much does the coffee cost?)
• Keep the quantity word and its noun together: Câte pagini citește Ana? (How many pages is Ana reading?), not a separated phrase modeled on English.

What advanced forms might you recognize?

This lesson focuses on the basic nominative-accusative forms. In more advanced genitive-dative phrases, you may see câtor before a noun and câtora standing alone: Câtor colegi le-ai trimis un mesaj? (How many colleagues did you send a message to?) The case system determines these forms; do not replace the basic forms with them in an ordinary subject question.

Mistakes to avoid

• Do not use câți with every plural noun. Say câte cărți and câte scaune, but câți colegi.
• Do not use a singular form with a countable plural noun: câte bilete, not cât bilete.
• Do not add the definite article after the quantity word: Câte bilete ai?, not Câte biletele ai?.
• Do not choose by the real-world sex of a person or object. The noun controls the form: câte persoane but câți oameni.
• Do not confuse cât in Cât costă? with agreement on an omitted plural noun. With a named plural noun, choose câți or câte instead.

What variation should you recognize?

The forms in this article are neutral contemporary Standard Romanian. Word order may change for emphasis, and the full genitive-dative paradigm is more detailed than the A2 core. The agreement pattern itself is not a casual-versus-formal choice: select the form required by the noun's gender and number.