EasyCroatian_r47.an

Easy Croaan (rev. 47b) / 28 Asking Who and What 166 / 600
Što N se to događa? What is going on? (right now)
Tko N je to N ? Who’s that?
Kome DL to pišeš? Who are you writing to? (I see you’re typing a message) pisati
Observe that between the question words and to second-position words may
appear. This removes the ambiguity of the present tense, as this question is also
about someone’s job, depending on the context:
Što A radiš? What are you doing? / What do you do?
Such to is optional, of course, but makes the question really specific. Even adding
sad(a) now wouldn’t remove the ambiguity, since sad(a) can stretch to days, weeks,
months – depending on the context.
If you are puzzled what to is in such questions, it behaves rather as an adverb or
particle, and never changes its form.
Finally, it’s possible to ask questions what should be, or what should you do, that is,
ask for advice or an opinion. There’s a special construction where da is put right
after the question-word:
Što A da pišem? What should I write?
pisati
Koga A da čekamo? Who should we wait for?
Što A da radim? What should I do?
(Google for što da radim or šta da radim and you’ll see it’s a very frequent
expression.)
The main verb should be in the present tense, as in other questions of this type (gdje
da..., kada da... etc.):
Kamo da idemo? Where should we go?
The verbs must be in the present tense to use such form. If you are asking about
what should have been, use the verb trebati in the past tense with another verb in
inf:
Što A sam trebao raditi? What should I have been doing?
________
® The variants ko and šta are considered standard in Bosnia and Serbia. In Serbia,
and especially Bosnia, što is often used with meaning why.
The verb dešavati («) se² is considered standard in Serbia and most of Bosnia.
• Something Possibly Interesting
The to in š-to, not appearing in other cases, comes historically from forms like
these:
Što to radiš? What are you doing?