EasyCroatian_r47.an

Easy Croaan (rev. 47b) / 42 Come In, Come Out, Go 243 / 600
42 Come In, Come Out, Go
Now I will introduce you to various verbs derived from ići (ide, išao, išla) go.
The verb is irregular in the pres-3 and past forms, and verbs derived from it are also
irregular. They have a wide range of meanings, some of them both a literal meaning
and metaphorical one.
There’s a very important difference compared to English. Take a look at the
following English sentences:
I went into the room.
I came into the room.
I entered the room.
English has a set of verbs (enter, leave, etc.) that are used with simple objects: you
just enter something.
Not so in Croatian: most motion verbs behave as go and don’t use objects, but
rather destinations or locations. For example:
Išao sam u sobu A . I went into the room.
Ušao sam u sobu A . I entered the room.
All verbs are organized into impf. ~ perf. pairs. Actually, all impf. verbs derived in
those pairs are perfectly regular. The two simplest verb pairs are:
dolaziti ~ doći (dođe, došao, došla) come
ulaziti ~ ući (uđe, ušao, ušla) enter, come into
As you can see, these two verb pairs have exactly the same forms, just one pair
ići past-m
ući past-m
starts with do- and another with u-. All verbs derived from ići have exactly the forms
like the verbs above, except for two verbs, so it’s much less to remember than it
seems.
This is a general characteristic of Croatian verbs: they are organized into families,
where all pairs have very similar forms, stress pattern, and usually just different
prefixes. An upside is that you can easily remember all verb pairs at once; a
downside is that you can sometimes mix pairs up.
Let’s put them to use:
Doći ćemo sutra. We’ll come tomorrow.
The stress patterns of verbs depend on the number of syllables in the prefix, e.g.
verbs derived with do- do not have the same pattern as ones derived with iza-.
The following verb deviates from the above pattern:
odlaziti ~ otići (ode, otišao, otišla) leave, depart
It’s a very frequently used verb pair. The impf. verb means depart, leave: