EasyCroatian_r47.an

Easy Croaan (rev. 47b) / 03 Objects 20 / 600
In sentences like Ana čita knjigu, the word Ana is called subject. So, the Croatian N
case is sometimes called the subject case:
subject object
↓ ↓
Ana čita knjigu.
N
A
In English, the word order is almost always subject-verb-object. It’s also the most
common order in Croatian, but it’s not always so, as you’ll see later.
If you are now puzzled where the English a (in a book) got lost – it does not exist in
Croatian, there’s no difference between a book and the book in Croatian. (I’ll show
later how you can express a or the if you really need it.)
The majority of verbs require just objects in accusative. For instance:
čekati wait
gledati watch
imati have, possess
slušati listen
tražiti search, look for
trebati need
Let’s put them to use:
Ana gleda televiziju. Ana is watching TV.
Trebam kavu. I need coffee. ®
Ivan čeka baku. Ivan is waiting for his grandmother.
Slušam pjesmu. I’m listening to a song.
Goran traži knjigu. Goran is looking for the book.
Unlike the English verb have, Croatian imati is a perfectly regular and simple verb:
Ivan ima knjigu. Ivan has a book.
While in English, verbs listen and wait use prepositions to and for (you wait for
something), in Croatian no such special words are needed, you just use nouns in
accusative. The same goes for tražiti.
You could also see that in English we have his grandmother while in Croatian it’s just
baka (in A). Words like his, my, her are less used in Croatian and are often implied.
(English also implies possession in some circumstances: it’s enough to say I’m at
home – it’s implied that you’re at your home, not at home that belongs to someone
else. When it’s somebody else’s home, then you would say e.g. I’m at your home.)
This change of ending applies to loanwords (that is, words taken from other
languages) as well:
Goran jede pizzu. Goran is eating a pizza.
jesti
There are also a few words that must adapt in English as well, depending on their
role: you cannot say “I’m listening to she”, but I’m listening to her. It’s just that in
Croatian, basically all nouns must adapt.