EasyCroatian_r47.an

Easy Croaan (rev. 47b) / 38 Needs, Wishes and Intenons 221 / 600
kupovati (kupuje) ~ kupiti buy
For example:
Moram kupiti novu majicu A . I have to buy a new T-shirt.
It’s unlikely that you want to engage in buying, but not really buy a new T-shirt.
In the Standard Croatian, the infinitive always ends in -i. Colloquially, the final -i of
infinitives is very often left out, even in writing:
Želim jest jabuku A . (colloq.)
Moram pit vodu A . (colloq.)
Please pay attention how the English verb must behaves a bit differently than the
other two – it does not use to. English has a special group of ‘modal’ verbs that have
specific behavior – for example, it’s not he musts, but he must. Croatian has no
special modal verbs, the verbs above are like any others, except they permit another
verb in the infinitive as their ‘object’.
Warning. If the verb in inf has a pronoun as its object, it goes to the second
position (unless you use stressed forms, which will be explained a bit later):
Želim te A vidjeti. I want to see you. (!)
Here the pronoun te² (ti in A) is the object of the verb vidjeti see, and not of the
verb željeti want! (Verbs in inf cannot have subjects, so te² cannot be its subject.)
If you would mistakenly translate the last sentence word-for-word, you would
get:
(wrong translation!) I want you to see.
This is an example where the word order in Croatian is completely different than
in English, and it simply doesn’t carry the meaning English order does. (How to
express I want you to see will be explained in 56 Desires and Demands. If you’re
impatient, it’s želim da vidiš.) Check also the past tense:
Željela te A je vidjeti. She wanted to see you. (!)
You’ll sometimes see another construction, which uses verb + da + verb in the
present tense, both verbs in the same person. In such a construction, the word da
restarts word-counting and holds the first position:
Želim da jedem jabuku A . I want to eat an apple.
Želim da te A vidim. I want to see you.
Such constructions are more common in eastern parts of Croatia, but you will
encounter them in songs and literature as well.®
Of course, verbs like trebati can used simply with an object, but it corresponds to
English need, and when it’s used with another verb in infinitive ®, it’s like English
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