EasyCroatian_r47.an

Easy Croaan (rev. 47b) / 49 For 7 Hours: Definite Periods 284 / 600
49 For 7 Hours: Definite Periods
We know how to say two hours and five days, and now we are going to make use of
these expressions to say how long some action or state lasts (or lasted).
If you want to say that something took a specific amount of time (two hours, three
days, etc.) you don’t have to – you must not – use any prepositions in Croatian, the
only thing you need is to put the time period into the accusative case:
Plivao sam dva sata 24 . I was swimming for two hours.
Ana N je živjela u Zagrebu DL pet godina G . Ana lived in Zagreb for five years.
Recall that constructions with numbers greater than 1 look the same in all cases.
However, when something took one year (or one week, etc.), both words must go to
the accusative case, since jedan (jedn-) one is an adjective:
Trčao sam jedan sat A . I was running for one hour.
Ana N je živjela u Zadru DL jednu godinu A . Ana lived in Zadar for one year.
Don’t forget that G-pl, used with numbers 5 and on, often has a slightly specific
form:
dva tjedna 24 two weeks (‘G’) ®
pet tjedana G five weeks (G-pl)
Now, there’s a very important rule, the time-phrase rule, basically saying that you
have to say how many hours (or years, weeks...) something took: you cannot just say
"trčao sam sat"!
However, there are four often used special phrases:
godina dana 1 year
mjesec dana 1 month
tjedan dana 1 week ®
sat vremena 1 hour
They are just words for time periods + another word, dan day or vrijeme (vremen-)
time/weather in the genitive case. Literally, they mean a year of days, and so on.
The first word is free to change case, so the two sentences above often look like
this when phrases are put to the accusative case as they must be if used as time
periods:
Trčao sam sat A vremena G . I was running for an hour.
Ana N je živjela u Zadru DL godinu A dana G . Ana lived in Zadar for a year.
Of course, you can also say jedna godina, etc. (Observe there are no special phrases
for one day or one minute).
You don’t have to use numbers, can use parts, or adjectives. All grammar rules we
already learned for expressing parts still apply, of course:
Plivao sam pola sata G . I was swimming for half an hour.
Ana N je živjela u Osijeku DL cijelu godinu A . Ana lived in Osijek for a whole year.