EasyCroatian_r47.an

Easy Croaan (rev. 47b) / 27 Body 159 / 600
Anu A je boljelo oko N . Ana’s eye has hurt.
Anu A su boljele oči N . Ana’s eyes have hurt.
f
If you can’t (or don’t want to) tell what hurts, you should make an impersonal
sentence, i.e. without a subject – and consequently, neuter singular in the past tense
– but don’t forget the object:
Boli° me A . It hurts.
Boljelo me A je. It has hurt.
The next interesting thing is what grows from the body – hair. While English has only
one word, Croatian strictly distinguishes these two terms:
kosa human hair growing from the scalp ®
dlaka facial hair, body hair, animal hair
The word kosa is used in singular only – it stands for any amount of hair. Such nouns
are called mass nouns. Similarly, English hair can refer to a single hair or any amount
of it. The word is reserved for human hair growing from the top of the head.
Everything else is dlaka, which can be used in either in singular or in the plural dlake
to describe any amount of such hair. It’s interesting that French has the same
distinction: cheveu vs. poil – but they both refer to single hair, you have to use plural
in most circumstances. Italian does it too: capello vs. pelo.
When talking about body parts, it’s common to express possession somehow. Recall
it’s normal, when you use body parts as objects, to express possession by DL:
Ana N pere Goranu DL kosu A . Ana is washing Goran’s hair.
prati
The DL case is also used, usually in speech, to express possession of a described
body part as well, that is, when a body part is the subject of the verb biti (je² +) be.
We start from these sentences:
Kosa N je čista N . The hair is clean.
Noge N su prljave N . The feet are dirty.
Lice N je prljavo N . The face is dirty.
Here the nouns kosa hair, noga leg/foot (in plural noge) and lice face are the
subjects. Then we add the person in DL, and change the word order a bit, as usual
(but the body parts are still subjects):
(1) Goranu DL je kosa N čista N . Goran’s hair is clean.
Goranu DL su noge N prljave N . Goran’s feet are dirty.
Lice N ti DL je prljavo N . Your face is dirty.
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We can shuffle words around, e.g. ... čista kosa and so on.
There’s another way: you can usually express possession with the verb imati have.
Now the body parts and any adjectives describing them are in A:
(2) Goran N ima čistu kosu A . Goran has clean hair.
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