EasyCroatian_r47.an

Easy Croaan (rev. 47b) / 77 As If: Advanced Clauses 433 / 600
Such standard sentences have the same meaning as a bit colloquial ones with the
common future tense, but they are significantly less common in real life (some 10
times less common on the Internet).
Then, osim... i... is used similar to English besides:
Osim sladoleda G , nudimo i kolače A . Besides ice-cream, we offer cakes as well.
Here the normal rules of osim + noun are observed (i.e. N, A → G). In writing, it’s
common to use pored... i in this meaning as well.
The next thing is using da-clauses to express how something is done. Such clauses
are then appended to tako so, in such way, so effectively we have tako da:
Odgovorite na pitanja A tako da zaokružite broj A ispred odgovora G . Answer the
questions ‘in such a way that’ you circle the number before the answer. (i.e. by
circling a number)
There are two more constructions that use da-clauses. The first one corresponds to
English construction too... to..., for example:
Goran N je premlad N [da vozi auto A ]. Goran is too young [to drive a car]. masc.
While English has too as a separate word, Croatian pre- is glued to the adjective (you
will see it spelled separately from time to time, but it’s non-standard spelling).
While English uses a to-construction, Croatian sentences are of the desire type, i.e.
only present tense (or conditional) but perfective verbs are allowed (one is used in
the example below). Note that the Croatian construction is much more flexible,
since anything can be a subject in the clause, while English is stuck with the infinitive,
which cannot have a subject; therefore, English must use for when the subjects
differ:
Sendvič N je prevelik N [da ga A pojedem]. The sandwich is too big [for me] [to 3m/n
eat (it completely)].
Literally, the Croatian sentence says:
The sandwich is too big da I completely-eat it.
It’t interesting that in such sentences, conditional is used more often than the
present tense; sometimes you’ll see the verb moći (može +, mogao, mogla) can also
added to the clause, with not much difference in meaning:
Sendvič N je prevelik N [da bih ga A pojeo].
3m/n
Sendvič N je prevelik N [da bih ga A mogao pojesti].
3m/n | moći past-m
As with other atemporal clauses, instead of biti (je² +) be, the verb (bude) should be
used, but conditional prevails with that verb almost completely in this construction.
This construction easily translates English phrases like too good to be true i.e.
predobro da bi bilo istina – and similar – but they are not that common in Croatian
and somehow always feel like translation of English phrases.