Spanish to Romanian: dos stays the same in Spanish, but Romanian distinguishes doi and două
Two boys and two girls use the same Spanish numeral
Spanish dos chicos and dos chicas both use dos. The nouns distinguish the groups, and other agreeing words may change, but the numeral itself does not. Romanian expresses two with different forms according to the relevant grammatical gender: doi băieți for two boys and două fete for two girls.
Liviu P. Dinu’s University of Bucharest course notes illustrate those masculine and feminine pairs alongside un stilou and două stilouri, one and two fountain pens. The third pair is particularly useful for Spanish speakers because it shows why a masculine-looking singular article does not require masculine doi when the noun becomes plural.
A fountain pen does not become feminine because there are two
Romanian neuter nouns follow masculine agreement patterns in the singular and feminine patterns in the plural. The Universal Dependencies overview describes that distribution explicitly. Thus the change from un stilou to două stilouri is part of a grammatical agreement pattern, not a statement about the physical nature of the writing instruments.
Spanish una pluma estilográfica and dos plumas estilográficas keep the noun’s feminine agreement across the change in number. Copying that Spanish gender directly onto the Romanian singular would miss un stilou. Conversely, choosing doi solely because the Romanian singular used un would miss the plural pattern shown in the course notes.
For a stationery order, the intended quantity remains two fountain pens throughout. The Romanian numeral and noun forms must work together to express that order. A target ending that differs from the singular is not evidence that a different kind of object has been substituted, nor does preserving the digit 2 guarantee that the surrounding words agree.
Source gender and target agreement are separate decisions
Spanish provides its own gender clues through articles, nouns, and adjectives, but those clues describe Spanish grammatical relationships. A translator cannot simply label every feminine Spanish noun feminine in Romanian. The fountain-pen example demonstrates the mismatch even for a familiar concrete object with a clear, stable meaning.
This also explains why a list containing dos chicos, dos chicas, and dos plumas cannot be translated by inserting one unchanged Romanian word for dos on every line. The quantity is constant while the noun constructions differ. Romanian doi or două must follow the selected target noun and its plural agreement pattern rather than the repeated Spanish numeral.
When a Spanish inventory changes from one item to two, establish the Romanian singular and plural as a pair. The attested un stilou / două stilouri pattern gives a concrete example of why looking only at the singular article is insufficient. Preserving both count and target agreement produces a usable Romanian phrase, while mechanically copying either Spanish gender or Romanian singular appearance can give an otherwise recognisable item an inappropriate numeral form.
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