EasyCroatian_r47.an

Easy Croaan (rev. 47b) / 54 When, While, Unl, Before, Aer 316 / 600
come right after it. The same holds for nakon što, corresponding to both
prepositions nakon and poslije. The word order is illustrated by the sentence #2 put
to the past tense:
Očistio sam² kuću A prije nego što su² došli gosti N .
doći past-mpl
Sometimes, when perfective verbs are used after prije nego što, you will find
‘empty’ negations:
Zaustavi ga A prije nego što ne bude prekasno. (sometimes) Stop him before 3m/n
it’s too late. (or: it gets)
This is not mandatory (unlike when expressing until), you don’t have to use it, but be
prepared to hear and read such negations once a while, and apply your common
sense then.
Expressing after with nakon što is very similar:
Očistit ću kuću A nakon što odu gosti N . I’ll clean the house after the guests otići
leave.
There’s never an ‘empty’ negation with nakon što.
After prije nego što and nakon što you can use any tense. It includes using
perfective verbs in the present tense (as in the examples above) – it refers to the
future then. If you want to express that something happened before something else,
and both things happened in the past (from your point of speaking), both verbs
should be in the past (see the examples above). You can also put both parts in the
future, but with perf. verbs, using the present tense for future events is much more
common.
This compares prepositions with conjunctions (used to start time clauses):
+ noun (in G) + clause
while za vrijeme dok (impf.)
until do¨ dok (perf.) + “neg.”
before prije prije nego što
after
poslije
nakon
nakon što
Here “neg.” stands for the mandatory, but ‘empty’ negation. (Of course, nouns can
be with one or more adjectives, with appended nouns in genitive etc.)
You will sometimes hear and read just prije nego without što. It’s not common in
speech, at least mine.
It not uncommon to start a sentence with a time clause; as in English, a comma (,) is
used then: