EasyCroatian_r47.an

Easy Croaan (rev. 47b) / 37 Complete Reading: Perfecve Verbs 216 / 600
Pala je noć .
Kiša N je dugo padala. ‘The rain was falling’ for a long time.
Kiša N je pala. ‘The rain fell’.
pasti past-f
Perfective verbs are so often used in the past tense that some people would answer
that the past form of the verb padati is pao! Another example:
Platio sam piće A . I paid for the drink. (done)
Plaćam piće A . I’m paying for the drink. (right now or about to do it)
If you want to express that something has happened moments ago, you can use the
adverb sad(a) now with a perf. verb in the past tense:
Sad sam se probudio. I’ve just woken up.
Since perf. verbs stand for accomplishments, you must often tell exactly what you
did, even if you don’t have to with the impf. verb:
Čitao sam. I was reading (something).
Pročitao sam knjigu A . I have read the book. (must say what)
You should use perf. verbs if there’s an indication what was produced, absorbed or
consumed, even if the amount is not exact. In the sentence #1, it’s not clear at all
how much is consumed each time, the action is very generic:
(1) Ponekad pijem vino A . I drink wine sometimes.
piti
(2) Ponekad popijem malo vina G I drink little wine sometimes.
popiti
In the sentence #2, it’s stated how much is consumed, so we use a perf. verb (here
both verbs are in the present tense, since we’re talking about occasional events; but
this applies to all tenses).
Whenever there’s a focus on action – not on what was actually accomplished – you
should use impf. verbs in Croatian:
We were building houses. → impf. in Croatian
We built three houses. → perf. in Croatian
The first sentence has emphasis on action: what the result was isn’t said, what was
successfully built – if anything! Such a sentence will use an impf. verb in Croatian.
But the second sentence tells exactly what was accomplished, and such a sentence
uses a perf. verb in Croatian. Since people talk about both – what they were doing
and what they accomplished – Croatian (as all Slavic languages, from Russian to
Czech) treats it as different things, and has a different verb for each of them.
What about we built houses? If you imply that the houses mentioned were really
completed, it’s perf. in Croatian.
Sometimes, two verbs that make a pair are different in English as well:
Puno sam učila. I studied a lot.
Puno sam naučila. I learned a lot.