EasyCroatian_r47.an

Easy Croaan (rev. 47b) / 56 Desires and Demands 329 / 600
In Bosnia, instead of kruh, hljeb is mostly used; in Serbia, it’s “Ekavian” hleb.
In Bosnia and Serbia, mobile phone is called mobilni (changes as an adjective).
In Serbia, there seem to be no difference in volio bih da... vs volio bih + inf, and
infinitives are rare in speech there anyway.
• Examples
The song Korak od sna A step away from dream, is a pop song by Prljavo kazalište
Dirty Theater, a pop-rock band from Zagreb, from 1983. It has fairly simple lyrics:
Jedan tako običan dan N One so ordinary day
jedna djevojka N one girl
A koju jedva da znam who I barely know
I jedan prazan stan N and an empty apartment
dovoljan razlog N a sufficient reason
za još jednu laž A for one more lie
f
The construction koju jedva da znam is a relative clause: they will be covered in the
following chapters. The noun laž f lie is another feminine noun not in -a to
remember.
The next verses are simple, note that Croatian never switches case in constructions
like you and me: only ‘you and I’ is possible when in position requiring the N case:
Ti N i ja N
You and me
mi N smo korak A sad od sna G we are now a step away from dream
In the expression korak od sna, korak is actually a quantity, and therefore in A
(which is equal to N for this noun). If we would take e.g. sekunda second, the
matching expression would be sekundu od sna.
And then we have a desire clause in the following verses:
Ne želim [da mi DL kažeš I don’t want [you to tell me
1 | kazati
o sebi DL sve A ]
all about yourself]
jer ovo N nije vrijeme N because this is not a time
Romea G i Julije G
of Romeo and Juliet
moje namjere N nisu loše N my intentions aren’t bad
o ne, ja N ne ostavljam oh no, I don’t leave
nikakve tragove A any tracks
(Jasenko Houra)
The preposition o¨ about requires DL, and consequently reflexive DL sebi is used.
The normal word order would be ... sve o sebi, but it’s tweaked here to make it
rhyme.
You can listen to it on YouTube. Check the performance on A strana and the
original version.