EasyCroatian_r47.an

Easy Croaan (rev. 47b) / 45 Quanes and Existence 262 / 600
45 Quantities and Existence
Quantities (some water, many people) can be expressed in several ways in Croatian.
It’s important to make first a distinction between countable and uncountable nouns:
countable uncountable can be both
auto m car
jabuka apple
problem problem
prozor window
Ana (name)
...
kosa hair (on head)
sol f salt ®
sreća luck
vrijeme (vremen-) time
zrak air ®
...
kava coffee ®
kruh bread ®
papir paper
sok juice
voda water
...
In English, you can e.g. use few with countable nouns (few cars) but not with
uncountable ones (no few salt but rather little salt). And you cannot use numbers
with uncountable ones (that’s why they are called so). Finally, there are nouns, such
as water, which can be both countable and uncountable. But let’s look at the
simpler nouns first.
In Croatian, there’s a shortcut: if you want to express some quantity of an
uncountable noun, used as an object, you can use just the noun in the genitive case
(instead of A):
Imam soli G . I have some salt.
f
If you want to express the same thing, but for countable nouns, you should use the
genitive case in plural:
Imamo jabuka G . (G-pl) We have some apples.
Note how English uses the noun in singular in the first sentence, but the noun in
plural in the second sentence, exactly corresponding to the Croatian forms (except
for the genitive case, of course).
Of course, the verb imati have normally demands A. But using G instead of A is a
shortcut to express few or some of the object. This can be done with other verbs
as well, but it’s common with imati. A lot of meaning in Croatian is expressed
with just tweaking cases!
With nouns of the third type, you can use them in G, but also count them:
Imamo kruha G . We have some bread. ®
Imamo dva kruha 24 . I have ‘two breads’. (two loafs of bread)
Imam soka G . I have some juice.
Molim dva soka 24 . ‘I’m kindly asking for two juices.’ (Two bottles/glasses of juice,
please.)
As you can see, the meaning changes if you count them – they then refer to some