EasyCroatian_r47.an

Easy Croaan (rev. 47b) / 49 For 7 Hours: Definite Periods 285 / 600
Ana N je živjela u Zagrebu DL mnogo godina A . Ana lived in Osijek for many years.
As time nouns (i.e. dan day etc.) don’t normally come in pairs, the word par means a
couple of with them. Of course, you can use nekoliko several too:
Hodao sam par sati G . I was walking for a couple of hours.
Ana N je živjela u Rijeci DL nekoliko mjeseci G . Ana lived in Osijek for a several months.
These time expressions look like objects – and are a bit similar to objects: you can
eat the whole cake, likewise, you could live the whole year. But they aren’t really
objects.
These rules also apply when you use other nouns for time periods such as:
jutro morning
prijepodne (prijepodnev-) time before noon
popodne (popodnev-) afternoon
noć f night
večer f evening ®
trenutak (trenutk-) moment
vikend weekend
vječnost f eternity
For example:
Plesali smo cijelu noć A . We were dancing for the whole night.
f
Such use of cijeli also translates English phrases like all day long. It applies to
seasons as well:
Kiša N je padala cijelu zimu A . It was raining for the whole winter.
There’s a verb expressing duration of some event or state (e.g. predavanje lecture,
kiša rain, oluja storm, etc.) expressed by a noun:
trajati (traje) last, take time
For example (observe that the time-phrase rule still holds):
Film N je trajao dva sata 24 . The movie lasted for two hours.
Predavanje N je trajalo jedan sat A . The lecture lasted for one hour.
But what if you’re still reading or waiting, or the it? In English, you should use the
Present Perfect tense (have been), but in Croatian you should use the present tense:
Ivan N je dvije godine živio u Zagrebu DL . Ivan lived in Zagreb for two years. (but not
now)
Ivan N dvije godine živi u Zagrebu DL . Ivan has lived in Zagreb for two years. (and still
does)