EasyCroatian_r47.an

Easy Croaan (rev. 47b) / 06 Desnaons 38 / 600
For example:
Ana uskoro dolazi ovamo. Ana is coming here soon.
To ask where to something or someone goes/travels, just start a question with:
kamo where... to
Nothing else except this word is needed, there’s no change of word order:
Kamo Ana ide? Where is Ana going to?
ići
— Na posao. To work.
— Ide na posao. She’s going to work.
ići
It’s normal to answer with just a destination, leaving the verb out; you can include
the verb if you want to emphasize it. In colloquial communication, especially in
some regions, you will hear e.g. gdje or kuda instead of kamo in such questions.®
As you can see, the accusative case is not used only for objects. In fact, almost all
cases in Croatian have more than one use. If you find somewhere on the Internet a
table where each case has one use, and even better, where each case “answers to
questions”, bear in mind that explains only a small part of the real use. I will
introduce other uses of accusative gradually.
________
® The following words or phrases are usually not used Serbia and most of Bosnia;
words or phrases pointed by arrows are used instead:
kava → kafa
kino → bioskop
nogomet → fudbal
otok → ostrvo
van → napolje
zrak → vazduh
sljedeći tjedan → sljedeće nedjelje / sljedeće sedmice
In Bosnia, in parts where Bosniaks (Bosnian Muslims) live, kahva is used for coffee
as well.
The word napolje is heard in parts of Croatia as well.
The stress moves to prepositions like u¨ and na¨ – only with specific nouns! – in
Bosnia, parts of Croatia (Dalmatia and Slavonia), and western parts of Serbia (not
including Belgrade) and western parts of Montenegro.
Instead of sutra, a slightly different form, sjutra, is used in Montenegro.
In Bosnia and Serbia, kuda is usually used to ask for destinations, kamo is not used.
Also, especially in speech, gdje (in Serbia gde) is frequently used in these countries.
• Something Possibly Interesting
Using prepositions with the accusative case to indicate where something is moving
to is not uncommon: German uses the same system.