EasyCroatian_r47.an

Easy Croaan (rev. 47b) / 70 If I Were: Condional Sentences 407 / 600
Ako se vratila, odmah je naz vi.
immediately. (past, imperative)
There’s another type of sentences, not frequently discussed, kind of opposite of
what I have just described. The reasons in the conditional sentences were important
– they are precisely why something was not done or isn’t done. However, it’s easy to
turn such sentences upside down: something happened (or didn’t) regardless of a
condition. This is what I mean:
Even if it had been cold, we would have gone to the beach.
It wasn’t cold, but even if it were, the second part would happen, regardless of the
condition. In Croatian, surprisingly, you just add an i¨ before da and the whole
sentence changes its meaning completely:
I da je bilo hladno, otišli bismo na plažu A . Even if it had been cold, otići past-mpl
we would have gone to the beach.
As usual, the word i¨ is ‘glued’ and it’s not counted: all second-position words come
after the da.
Adding another word – čak – before i da further emphasizes irrelevance of the
condition. Such expression really translates as even if; only i da is more it doesn’t
matter:
Čak i da je bilo hladno, otišli bismo na plažu A . (emphasis)
otići past-mpl
Another option is that it was cold, but we still did it. The grammar is then of the
second type (ako....). Then you would add i¨ to ako, but then they get fused to a
single word iako:
Iako je bilo hladno, otišli smo na plažu A . Although it was cold, we otići past-mpl
went to the beach.
The combined word iako is used like i da – only in the past and present tenses. To
express that you will do something in the future, regardless of something else, use
separate i ako:
I ako bude hladno, otići ćemo na plažu A . Even if it’s cold, we’ll go to the beach.
Finally, it’s possible to ask hypothetical questions, e.g. what would..., if.... Everything
said before about the first type of sentences (using da) still applies:
Gdje bismo išli, da je bilo toplo? Where would we have gone, if it had ići past-mpl
been warm? (past)
Što bi radio, da pada kiša N ? What would you do, if it were raining? (present)
Of course, it’s possible to ask about future, using ako:
Hoćeš li je A nazvati, ako se vrati? Will you call her, if she comes back?
3f A
This applies to all kinds and ways of making questions.
Clauses can be reordered, you can start questions with da or ako, but you still need