Daniel, This is the most amazing website ever! I have countless Croatian language books and I've never understood a word of any of them but your explanations are so good. And you are not only teaching me Croatian but also English!!
Is this really correct on this 7 Gender page: Vidim velikog lava. does this mean: I see a big lion. If so, then would it be better this: Vidim velik lav. (Accusative case)
Hi Daniel - just started studying Croatian at University of Waterloo. Wondering about how to tell what gender a Croatian noun is. You say above "there are rules that will be explained next."... next where? Still looking for good rule of thumb like we have in the romance languages :)
Hi, In english, I have only ever heard inanimate objects as being 'it'. For animals, the default is 'he', but it is rude to refer to an animal that you know is feminine as 'he'. Only in old speech (when people used to spend their lives upon ships) would you ever see anyone referring to a ship as 'she' I guess that is because each ship was individual and the sailors would get to know everything about it (and the only women they would see would be on their brief shore leave). Otherwise all objects are 'it' - neutral gender. Apart from that, if someone referred to an inanimate object as anything other than 'it' you would think they had too much of a connection to it (trying to make it human) and would think they were a bit weird. (My first language is english.) Thank you for your blog though, it is very good to search through and remember certain grammar points!
I disagree with you about some inanimate objects not being given genders in English. It's quite common to hear someone refer to a nice car by saying "she's a beauty." The term "take her easy" or "take 'er easy," which I hear quite a bit in everyday life, comes from steering ships.
9 comments:
Thanks for this blog ;)
I am wondering what is the correct expression for
"I have got an old car"
a) Imam stari auto
b) Imam star auto
c) Imam staro auto
Google gives for
a) 1890
b) 100
c) 109
results
I would have choosen b). As far as I know auto is male because it is abbreviation of automobil
pozdrav!
JOhann
Daniel, This is the most amazing website ever! I have countless Croatian language books and I've never understood a word of any of them but your explanations are so good. And you are not only teaching me Croatian but also English!!
Thank you!
Hi Daniel,
Is this really correct on this 7 Gender page:
Vidim velikog lava.
does this mean: I see a big lion.
If so, then would it be better this:
Vidim velik lav. (Accusative case)
zhammer!
Johann, ispravno je: Imam staro auto.
My friend you really did a good job here. Thanks to you, i am learning this hard! language.
Pozdrav u Rijeci ;)
Hi Daniel - just started studying Croatian at University of Waterloo. Wondering about how to tell what gender a Croatian noun is. You say above "there are rules that will be explained next."... next where? Still looking for good rule of thumb like we have in the romance languages :)
Many thanks for the amazing site!
Amy
Hi,
In english, I have only ever heard inanimate objects as being 'it'. For animals, the default is 'he', but it is rude to refer to an animal that you know is feminine as 'he'. Only in old speech (when people used to spend their lives upon ships) would you ever see anyone referring to a ship as 'she' I guess that is because each ship was individual and the sailors would get to know everything about it (and the only women they would see would be on their brief shore leave). Otherwise all objects are 'it' - neutral gender. Apart from that, if someone referred to an inanimate object as anything other than 'it' you would think they had too much of a connection to it (trying to make it human) and would think they were a bit weird. (My first language is english.)
Thank you for your blog though, it is very good to search through and remember certain grammar points!
Sof s,
I disagree with you about some inanimate objects not being given genders in English. It's quite common to hear someone refer to a nice car by saying "she's a beauty." The term "take her easy" or "take 'er easy," which I hear quite a bit in everyday life, comes from steering ships.
Exactly is correct a) imam stari auto
Other examples are also used in speech,the last one especially in Bosnia.
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