cât costă?
cât costă? is the Romanian way to say "how much" when asking for the price of something.
The phrase cât costă? is the standard way to ask for the price of an object in a shop or market. You can also use Cât mă costă? to specifically mean "how much does it cost me?"
Meaning: what is the cost/price? (det)
Which one should you use?
While cât costă? is used specifically for price, the related form cât de mult is used to ask about quantity or degree, such as in the question "how much do you love me?"
Related words
How does it change in a sentence?
In the phrase cât costă?, the verb costă is in the third-person singular form. This is used even when the item being priced is not explicitly stated in the sentence.
Did you know?
- The word cât is a linguistic blend that merged two different Latin words, quantus and quotus, into one single Romanian term.
- In a busy market, you might hear someone say Cât costă la voi? which literally means 'How much does it cost at yours?'
- Romanian uses the same root cât to ask both 'how much' for uncountable things and 'how many' for countable things.
Examples in context
- Cât costă?How much is it?This sentence demonstrates the standard way to ask for a price using cât costă?Tatoeba #698946 by koosy, translation #2418 by brauliobezerra
- Cât costă rochia?How much does the dress cost?
- Cât face cafeaua?How much does the coffee cost?
- Cât costă merele pe kilogram?How much do the apples cost per kilogram?
- 1 more sentence on Tatoeba
Example conversation
Andreea and Alexandru are at a fruit market.
- AndreeaAlexandru, uită-te la merele astea!Alexandru, look at these apples!
- AlexandruArată foarte bine. Cât costă?They look very good. How much are they?
- AndreeaSunt cinci lei pe kilogram.They are five lei per kilogram.
- AlexandruE un preț excelent.That is an excellent price.
Sources
- Wiktionary, “how much” translations, CC BY-SA 4.0, dump of 2026-09-26.
- Word origins: Wiktionary entries cât, CC BY-SA 4.0.
- Example sentences: Tatoeba CC BY 2.0 FR.
