EasyCroatian_r47.an

Easy Croaan (rev. 47b) / 20 At My Friend’s: Genive 119 / 600
sister (G tvoje sestre) owns the apartment:
Ovo N je stan N tvoje sestre G . ‘This is an apartment of your sister’ (= your sister’s
apartment)
Ivan N je u stanu DL tvoje sestre G . Ivan is in your sister’s apartment.
Observe how changing case of stan apartment doesn’t affect the words tvoje sestre
at all. Here I’ve put the matching Croatian and English possessive phrases in square
brackets:
Ivana N je sestra N [moje žene G ]. Ivana is [my wife]’s sister.
Čekam sestru A [moje žene G ]. I’m waiting for [my wife]’s sister.
Pišem poruku A sestri DL [moje žene G ]. I’m writing a message to [my wife]’s sister.
(Croatian has precise words for wife’s sister etc. but you can always use expressions
like these.)
There’s something interesting with street names. We have already encountered
Branimirova ulica, lit. Branimir’s street. However, the official name of the street is
Ulica kneza Branimira (knez is a title, roughly prince).
People are talking about the same street either as Branimirova – often leaving out
ulica – or as Ulica kneza Branimira, e.g. when writing their address, even business
address, some people prefer one form over another. If you’re not aware of the
grammar behind it – as foreigners often aren’t – you can get an impression these are
two different streets! Here I took a photo of a shop door and an official street sign
few meters away from it:
There’s one more issue: with possessives (e.g. Anin), you could say:
Auto N je Anin N . The car ‘is Ana’s’. (= belongs to Ana)
m
You cannot do it when something belongs to someone expressed by more than one
word (e.g. moja sestra). There are two other ways.
The formal way is to use the verb pripadati belong (introduced in 16 Giving to
Someone, Going to Someone). You can use it with any expression that stands for
possessor. Keep in mind that this verb requires the DL case: