be careful / take care (Ai grijă!)
The bare imperative of a avea plus the noun. Warning and farewell at once, exactly like English "take care".
Ai grijă!
Be careful!
Ai grijă de tine.
Take care of yourself.
#115 · Noun
grijă
In Romanian, grijă means “be careful / take care (Ai grijă!)”. It’s the #115 most frequently used Romanian word. Below you’ll find how to use it, its forms, real example sentences, and common word pairings.
Meaning & Use
Grijă is "care" and "worry" in one word, feminine, rank 115. It lives almost entirely inside two phrases: Ai grijă! is the everyday "Be careful!" and "Take care!", and a avea grijă de is "to look after". The plural griji is the worries themselves — fără griji, "carefree".
neutralto look after (a avea grijă de)
The standard way to say you mind a child, a pet or a house. The de is required.
Am grijă de copii.
I'm looking after the children.
worry / concern
The mental sense, usually in the plural: griji.
Nu-ți face griji.
Don't worry.
fără griji
carefree
care / attention (with cu)
cu grijă is an adverb of manner, "carefully".
Condu cu grijă.
Drive carefully.
Forms you’ll actually hear
Ranked by how often each form shows up in spoken Romanian. The top 2 forms cover about 87% of everyday use — learn these first.
grijă51%
griji36%
Show 1 more form
grija13%
Noun Forms
- Gender
- feminine
- Countability
- both
| singular indefinite | grijă | |
|---|---|---|
| singular definite | grija | |
| plural indefinite | griji | |
| plural definite | grijile | |
| genitive dative singular | grijii | |
| genitive dative plural | grijilor |
A regular feminine noun in -ă: grijă, grija, griji, grijile. The bare form dominates the corpus because the two phrases that carry the word — ai grijă and cu grijă — both keep it article-free.
Examples
Ai grijă, e cald!
Careful, it's hot!
grijă - The bare noun inside a fixed phrase, with no article. The plural form is Aveți grijă.
Nu-ți face griji.
Don't worry.
griji - a-și face griji, "to make oneself worries", is the Romanian verb for worrying. The dative clitic changes for the person: nu-mi fac griji.
Cine are grijă de câine?
Who's looking after the dog?
grijă - a avea grijă de plus the thing minded. The de cannot be dropped.
Mergi cu grijă pe gheață.
Walk carefully on the ice.
grijă - cu plus a noun builds an adverb of manner — the productive Romanian equivalent of English "-ly".
Are multe griji în ultima vreme.
She has a lot of worries lately.
griji - The plural for the worries themselves, with multe agreeing in the feminine plural.
Ai grijă is two words doing one job, and the noun never takes an article inside it. It also serves as a goodbye — Ai grijă! at the end of a call is "take care", not a warning about anything in particular.
In expressions
Common phrases built around grijă — worth learning as whole units.
Ai grijă.— Take care. / Be careful.
lit. “have care”
a-și face griji— to worry
lit. “to make oneself worries” · reflexive dative clitic marks the worrier: îmi fac griji (I), îți faci griji (you)
a avea grijă de— to take care of, look after
lit. “to have care of”
Nu-ți face griji.— Don't worry.
lit. “not-yourself make worries” · plural/formal: nu vă faceți griji