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Easy Croaan (rev. 47b) / 33 School Yard and Bunk Bed: Relaons 192 / 600

Since relational adjectives cannot be simply derived from nouns, they will be listed

with nouns in the Core Dictionary.

The -ski is the default suffix for relational adjectives: new words that are adopted

into Croatian use it (translation for the words below is, I hope, not necessary):

atom → atomski laser → laserski

However, nouns ending in -s or -t will likely get the suffix -ni:

balet → baletni virus → virusni

There are probably more rules on -ski vs -ni, but I don’t know them at the moment.®

Certain terms in Croatian are not expressed in this way, especially when we describe

the purpose of something, e.g. where something is applied or where it’s used. Then,

the preposition za¨ + a noun in A are put after the noun. Common examples are:

čaša za vino wine glass

četka za kosu hair brush

krema za ruke hand cream

lak za nokte nail polish

pasta za zube toothpaste

šalica za čaj tea cup ®

Such constructions are used even in many cases when there seems to be an

appropriate relational adjective. For example, hand towel is only ručnik za ruke,

despite the relational adjective existing and being used in ručna kočnica hand brake,

ručni alat hand tool, and some others. Also, there is an adjective čajni, but it’s

basically used only in the expression čajni kolutić, which is a type of tea biscuit

(some 80% of appearances of čajni on the Internet are followed by kolutić: try it

yourself).

On the other hand, some of these terms have alternative versions, with relative

adjectives (e.g. zubna pasta toothpaste), but versions with za are more common in

speech.

Certain types of nouns, e.g. gerunds like čitanje reading don’t have relational

adjectives at all. To express reading glasses in Croatian, you have to use the same

construction:

naočale za čitanje reading glasses ®

štap za pecanje fishing rod

(More about gerunds in 66 Smoking is Dangerous: Verbal Nouns.)

Another way of expressing relation which does not use a relational adjective is with

na¨ + A, mostly placed after a noun, used as a predicative, or used as a kind of

(secondary) object. First, it can describe basically sources of power and energy:

peć na drva A wood stove

f

svjetiljka na baterije A battery-powered lamp

igračka na navijanje A wind-up toy

Note how Croatian is more precise here. English wood stove is in principle

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