"El vine cu autobuzul."
Translation:He comes with the bus.
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To me, "He comes with the bus" means that someone is included in the price of the bus, or that he is bringing the bus. If someone is arriving by bus, I would say "He comes on the bus" or "by bus". Any thoughts?
"El vine cu autobuzul" means "He's coming by bus" (as a passenger). It could also mean that he's driving the bus over, but that's not the first thing to spring to mind.
Ovidiu's response is, as usual, very helpful and entirely accurate. Being a non-native speaker, here are some additional things that it took a moment for me to wrap my mind around: the use of the definite article here is different from what we would expect in English, and is in some ways a bit of an exception in Romanian too. Generally in Romanian nouns after (aka governed by) a preposition are in their 'nearticulat' (without-an-article) form, but means of transport after 'cu' are one of the exceptions. "el a venit cu taxiul" = "he came by taxi" and probably not "he came with THE taxi", just as Ovidiu explained. So, two important things, both about the definite article on "autobuzul": one, generally speaking in Romanian one does NOT see a definite article after a preposition except in a handful of exceptions, this being one. two, contrary to what it sounds like, this use of the definite article is NOT defining a specific bus ("THE bus"), as a word-for-word (motamo) translation would wrongly imply.
Thanks, that explains a lot. I was a little confused about this preposition stuff.
So, the definite article does not really mean definite objects? Why is it used then? Or why is it called "definite"?
Exactly. Very good points Ovidiu and Paul.
I filled in "by bus" and it is accepted now. For the formula "with the bus", I imagine he is comming with a toy-bus in his pocket...
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As others have implied, "with" is wrong. It's not "another correct solution", it's just wrong.
Exactly. Romanian prepositions DO NOT translate one-to-one into English ones (or vice versa, obviously).
I don't have the option of choosing the words needed for the "by" construction.
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As stated by others, if the Romanian can mean he comes as a passenger on the bus, then "He comes on the bus" and "He comes by (the) bus" need to be accepted, as these are ways you say that in English. "He comes with the bus" means that he brings the bus, as in, he drives it here.
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'He comes on the bus' is rejected, yet 'on the' is a choice in the drop-down list of alternatives for cu.
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I agree with Tom but just to explore an oddity... He is coming by bus - no definite article. He is coming on the bus - needs the definite article but can mean exactly the same - it isn't specifying a particular bus. An odd language when one thinks about it!
"He comes with the bus" is plain wrong in nearly every context I can imagine (apart from he's included in the price, see below). "He comes on the bus", or even better "He is coming on the bus". Please fix this!