03.01.2020 Views

EasyCroatian_r47.an

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

YUMPU automatically turns print PDFs into web optimized ePapers that Google loves.

Easy Croaan (rev. 47b) / 39 Would, Could: Condionals 229 / 600

39 Would, Could: Conditionals

In Croatian, there is a special verb construction called conditional ®. It represents

desires or things that might happen. For instance, phrases I would... (or you could)

are often represented by conditionals in Croatian.

Conditional is a compound form: it’s constructed from the past form, and a special

conditional verb, having with the following forms:

person sing. plur.

1st bih² bismo²

2nd

biste²

bi²

3rd

bi²

In everyday speech of many people, just bi² is used in all persons and numbers, but

it’s not standard. Just bi² is also quite frequent in casual writing – these are results

by Google on the .hr domain:

form hits

"mi bismo" 46800

"mi bi" 71000

Let’s compare the following sentences in present:

Jedem. I am eating.

Mogu jesti. I can eat. ®

With ones in conditional (as indicated by the superscript ², the conditional verb

jesti

moći pres-1

wants to be at the second position):

Jeo bih. I would (like to) eat.

jesti past-m

Mogla bih jesti. I could eat. (female speaking) ®

moći past-f

The English I could eat is ambiguous: it could mean that you had the ability in the

past, or that you’re thinking about it right now (conditional). Croatian does not have

such an ambiguity:

Mogla bih jesti. (now, conditional)

Mogla sam jesti. (past)

Croatian mogla bih actually corresponds to English I would be able to.

People use conditionals a lot when trying to be polite or soften expressions, but it

could be ironic as well:

Hoću jesti. I want to eat. (not polite)

Htio bih jesti. (much more polite)

moći past-f

moći past-f

htjeti pres-1

Hooray! Your file is uploaded and ready to be published.

Saved successfully!

Ooh no, something went wrong!