to take / to carry (something somewhere)
Transitive. The thing moves because you move it — contrast a aduce, "to bring here".
Duc copiii la școală.
I'm taking the children to school.
Du asta în bucătărie.
Take this to the kitchen.
#76 · Verb
duce
In Romanian, duce means “to take / to carry (something somewhere)”. It’s the #76 most frequently used Romanian word. Below you’ll find how to use it, its forms, real example sentences, and common word pairings.
Meaning & Use
A duce means "to carry, to take something somewhere". Add the reflexive pronoun and a se duce means "to go" — and that is the form you hear all day, because Du-te! is the ordinary Romanian for "Go!". Rank 76, and the pattern is the same as with a uita: one spelling, two verbs, separated only by the little pronoun in front.
neutralto go (a se duce)
The reflexive verb, interchangeable with a merge but more physical and more spoken.
Mă duc acasă.
I'm going home.
Du-te!
Go!
to lead (of a road or a decision)
Of paths, doors and consequences: where something leads.
Drumul duce la mare.
The road leads to the sea.
to bear / to endure (a duce lipsă, a o duce bine)
Fixed phrases: a o duce bine "to be doing well", a duce lipsă de "to be short of".
Cum o duci?
How are you getting on?
Forms you’ll actually hear
Ranked by how often each form shows up in spoken Romanian. The top 4 forms cover about 89% of everyday use — learn these first.
duc32%
dus22%
duci18%
duce17%
Show 10 more forms
ducem4%
ducă3%
duceți2%
ducea<1%
dusă<1%
duși<1%
duceau<1%
duse<1%
duceam<1%
dusese<1%
Conjugation
- Infinitive
- a duce
- Past Participle
- dus
- Gerund
- ducând
- Imperative Singular
- du
- Imperative Plural
- duceți
- Auxiliary
- a avea
- Reflexive
- No
- Transitivity
- both
| Tense | eu | tu | el/ea | noi | voi | ei/ele |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Present | duc | duci | duce | ducem | duceți | duc |
| Imperfect | duceam | duceai | ducea | duceam | duceați | duceau |
| Perfect compus | am dus | ai dus | a dus | am dus | ați dus | au dus |
| Future | voi duce | vei duce | va duce | vom duce | veți duce | vor duce |
| Conditional | aș duce | ai duce | ar duce | am duce | ați duce | ar duce |
| Subjunctive | să duc | să duci | să ducă | să ducem | să duceți | să ducă |
- The reflexive a se duce conjugates identically with the pronoun in front: mă duc, te duci, se duce, ne ducem, vă duceți, se duc.
- a duce takes something away from here; a aduce brings it here. The one letter is the whole difference.
- The participle dus also works as an adjective meaning "gone" or "away": E dus, "He is out".
- a o duce bine is a fixed idiom for how life is going, with an o that refers to nothing in particular.
Examples
Mă duc la magazin.
I'm going to the shop.
mă duc - The reflexive "go". Without mă the sentence would mean "I am taking something to the shop" and would need an object.
Du-te acasă!
Go home!
du-te - The irregular imperative du, with the reflexive pronoun hyphenated to the end. This is the everyday "Go!" — more common than any form of a merge.
Te duc eu cu mașina.
I'll take you by car.
duc - Here te is the object, not a reflexive marker: "I take you". Same verb form, opposite roles.
Unde duce ușa asta?
Where does this door lead?
duce - The "lead" sense, with no object. Romanian uses the same verb for roads, doors and consequences.
M-am dus, dar era închis.
I went, but it was closed.
dus - The compound past of the reflexive: mă plus am contracts to m-am, and the participle dus is irregular.
Trebuie să mă duc acum.
I have to go now.
să mă duc - After trebuie să the reflexive pronoun stays in front of the verb, inside the subjunctive.
The imperative is du, not *duce: Du-te! for "Go!" and Du asta! for "Take this!". It is one of a small group of irregular imperatives — alongside fă, zi, and vino — that are worth learning as a set.
Corpus examples
?
Where are you going?