how much (quantity or price)
The invariable adverb, asking about an amount.
Cât costă?
How much does it cost?
Cât e?
How much is it?
#97 · Adverb
cât
In Romanian, cât means “how much (quantity or price)”. It’s the #97 most frequently used Romanian word. Below you’ll find how to use it, its forms, real example sentences, and common word pairings.
Meaning & Use
Cât asks "how much". Rank 97, and it opens the three questions a visitor needs on the first day: Cât costă? "How much is it?", Cât e ceasul? "What time is it?", Cât durează? "How long does it take?". Before a countable noun it agrees — câți ani, câte zile — which is how it becomes "how many".
neutralhow many (with a countable noun)
Here it agrees with the noun: câți for masculine, câte for feminine and neuter.
Câți ani ai?
How old are you?
Câte zile?
How many days?
how long (of time)
cât timp, or bare cât with a verb of duration.
Cât durează?
How long does it take?
Cât stai?
How long are you staying?
as … as (atât … cât / la fel de … ca)
In comparisons of equality: atât de mare cât, "as big as".
Ia cât vrei.
Take as much as you want.
how (cât de + adjective)
cât de frumos! is an exclamation, "how beautiful!".
Cât de departe e?
How far is it?
Forms you’ll actually hear
Ranked by how often each form shows up in spoken Romanian. The top form cover about 99% of everyday use — learn these first.
cât99%
Show 1 more form
câte1%
Patterns
Invariable when it modifies a verb or an adjective (Cât costă?, cât de mare). Before a countable noun it becomes a determiner and agrees: câți (masc.), câte (fem./neut.), câtă for an uncountable feminine. It always stands at the front of its clause, taking any preposition with it: De cât timp?
Cât costă / Cât e?
The price question, and the commonest use of the word.
Cât costă biletul?
How much is the ticket?
câți / câte + noun
How many, agreeing with the noun that follows.
Câte ore ai lucrat?
How many hours did you work?
cât de + adjective
How + adjective, in questions and exclamations alike.
Cât de frumos e!
How beautiful it is!
cât timp
How long — duration.
Cât timp stai în București?
How long are you staying in Bucharest?
atât … cât
As much as — the comparison of equality.
Muncește atât cât poate.
He works as much as he can.
Examples
Cât costă?
How much does it cost?
cât - The invariable adverb. This single question carries a large share of the word’s frequency.
Cât e ceasul?
What time is it?
cât - Romanian asks "how much is the clock". Note that timp is never used for clock time.
Câți ani ai?
How old are you?
câți - Before a countable masculine noun it agrees: câți ani. This is the "how many" half of the word.
Cât de mult mai durează?
How much longer does it take?
cât de - cât de introduces a degree. mai here means "still", stacking onto the question.
Ia cât vrei.
Take as much as you want.
cât - Not a question at all — cât joins two clauses in the sense of "as much as".
Cât does not ask "what". Cât e ceasul? is "what time is it", but it is literally "how much is the clock" — and for a genuine "what" the word is ce. Asking *Ce e ceasul? means something closer to "what is a clock".
In expressions
Common phrases built around cât — worth learning as whole units.
cât de— how (+ adjective)
lit. “how-much of”