EasyCroatian_r47.an

Easy Croaan (rev. 47b) / 03 Objects 19 / 600
03 Objects
It’s nice to be able to say Ana is reading or I’m cooking, but it would be even better
to be able to say what you are reading or cooking!
Croatian is a language with grammatical cases. It means that words change a bit
when used in sentences. For instance, when you express what you are reading or
even whom you’re waiting for – that’s called object. This ‘role’ requires a form of a
noun that’s usually called accusative case or sometimes the object case. Since
accusative is a long word, it’s often shortened to just A.
(Nouns are words standing for a more or less specific object, person or idea,
something that can perform an action, e.g. sister, cat, or can be an object of an
action, e.g. you can eat a pizza).
Not all nouns change in accusative in the same way. Some don’t change at all. A
large group of nouns in Croatian end in -a; they all change that ending to -u in
accusative. For instance:
baka grandmother
jabuka apple
juha soup ®
kava coffee ®
knjiga book
mama Mom
pjesma song
riba fish
sestra sister
tata Dad
teta aunt
televizija TV ®
večera supper, late dinner
voda water
The default, ‘dictionary’ forms listed above are also considered a ‘grammatical case’
and are called nominative (just N for short).
We are now able to say:
Ana čita knjigu. Ana is reading a book.
Kuham juhu. I’m cooking soup.
Ivan pije kavu. Ivan is drinking coffee.
Jedem večeru. I’m eating supper.
Pijem vodu. I’m drinking water.
Warning. English prefers using ‘light’ or ‘generic’ verbs like make in many
circumstances, so you usually make coffee, make dinner and so on. Croatian has
almost no such verbs, and you have to use always specific verbs – for example,
kuhati cook if you prepare food or drink by cooking.
piti
jesti
piti