"The man eats dinner."

Translation: Bărbatul mănâncă cina.

[Lachlan_Hunt]

Why does "cina" have to be the definite form instead of the indefinite form, "cină", like it is in English?

[1gn1t10n]

It's like this. For lack of a better explanation, see "cina" as something particular that the man is eating. E.g.: you have dinner only once during a day as opposed to, say, fish which can use both the definite and the indefinite article, with similar meaning as in English:

He eats fish. -- Mănâncă peşte.

He eats a fish. -- Mănâncă un peşte.

He eats the fish. -- Mănâncă peştele.

Btw, in real life, say if your mother were to ask you "Did you eat/have dinner?" she would say "Ai mâncat de seară?" -- "Have you eaten for the evening?". "Ai mâncat cina?" or "Ai cinat?" sound odd.

Duo has a propensity for literal translations which makes it easier for beginners to spot the one-to-one mapping of the sentence structure.

[jpaugh]

For comparison, English uses the definite article only if it's a special meal, and more often with an adjective in between: "the anniversary dinner." Usually, it implies a formal event.. Romanian seems to use definite articles much more freely than English.