EasyCroatian_r47.an

Easy Croaan (rev. 47b) / 16 Giving to Someone, Going to Someone 95 / 600
There’s a very rough but often effective rule: when an English verb takes two objects
– and you order them without the word to – the first object corresponds to the
Croatian DL case, and the second one to the A case:
I’m writing Ana a letter.
He told Ivan the truth.
She will buy Goran a new bike.
I wish you a nice day.
In Croatian: DL A
Of course, I haven’t explained past and future tenses yet, and I haven’t shown forms
of pronouns in various cases – but it doesn’t matter, case use doesn’t depend on the
tense, and whether you use nouns or pronouns. It’s always the same scheme.
There are two more useful verbs that use DL, but it does not have anything to do
with receiving something – it’s just the way the verbs are. They are:
pomagati (pomaže) help
pripadati belong
For example:
Ana N pomaže Goranu DL . Ana is helping Goran.
pomagati
Auto N pripada Ani DL . The car belongs to Ana.
(German uses here the same grammar as Croatian: German verbs gehören and
helfen use the German Dative case. However, keep in mind that German cases are
really not identical to Croatian cases!)
The DL case is used in thanking, which is useful when you get something. The phrase
is:
hvala na¨ + DL thanks for
Croatian za¨ usually corresponds to English for, but not in this phrase. For example,
you could say:
Hvala na... Thanks for the...
... čestitci DL . ...greeting card.
... poruci DL . ...message.
... poklonu DL . ...gift.
... pomoći DL . ...help.
f
Here we’ve used another feminine noun that doesn’t end in -a: pomoć f help,
assistance.
The DL case is also involved with possession, especially with body parts and related
people (e.g. family or friends). I already explained how in Croatian, words like my