8 First Steps with Adjectives

• • • Easy Croatian: 14 My and Adjectives in Accusative, 17 Adjectives in Dative/Locative

15 comments:

Anonymous said...

What is the difference between accented and non-accented form? For example in dative: u dobru and u dobrom. When to use what and is that the same at all? Thank you, best regards

Anonymous said...

oprostite, why you say "pisem Ani" and not "pisem Anoj"?

Anonymous said...

To Anonymous 22 January, 2012 13:51:

It's been a while since I've studied BCS, but I feel confident in saying that you would use Ani rather than Anoj because Ana is a noun, and the -oj dative singular ending is specifically for adjectives.

The declension charts found here should help: http://basic-croatian.blogspot.com/p/grammar-summary-declension-tables.html

Since Ana is the name, you would use the feminine (a-noun) chart, or Ana -> Ani.

narukio2000 said...

Does the vocabulary words fit into the chart or are those separate special vocab words that function differently like. can I say for example (Plavem stol) Blue table Dat m.Sn because blue is an adjective and I've been wondering if it works like this?

Daniel N. said...

I don't understand your question completely, but yes, words for "blue", "John's", "great", etc are adjectives in Croatian.

it would be plav-om (dat. sg. m) stol-u (dat. sg.)

since it's -om by default, it's -em only after č, ć, š, j, ž, etc. and that is explained a bit later.

br Daniel

narukio2000 said...

If you are describing an verb in in another case, for example Dative. Would I still use Nom.Sn -neuter-o for describing the adjective? For example, He is going to the car quickly. What I'm saying is, would I still use Nom.Sn neuter to describe a verb in another case?

Daniel N. said...

No, verbs have no cases, only nouns, pronouns and adjectives change through cases depending on their role in a sentence.

"quickly" is an adverb, however most adjectives can serve as adverbs if in nom. neuter sg. but it's not attached to any noun, therefore grammars consider it to be an adverb.

But yes, many adverbs are actually adjectives "frozen" in nom. sg. n. However turning them into adverbs can change their meaning. For instance:

jak, jaka, jako = strong. On je jak. Ona je jaka "He is strong. She is strong." (jak is adjective here)

jako (adverb) = very On je jako bogat. Ona je jako bogata. "He is very rich. She is very rich." (jako is adverb)

It's a bit confusing really, it seems I will need to clarify it when I describe X is Y sentences :(

br Daniel

narukio2000 said...

So, I can only use an adverb if it's in the nominative case? Nom sg. -n- to make an an adverb only in nominative or can I use it with other cases to form adverbs?

Daniel N. said...

To put it simply, the form nom. sg. n of most adjectives can be used as an adverb. Recall that each adjective has in principle 6 forms (for cases) × 4 forms (for genders) × 2 (for singular and plural) = 48 forms, but most of them are identical to some other form, they are not all distinctive.

For instance you take an adjective brz "quick, fast" and its nom. sg. n brzo you can use as an adverb meaning "quickly". Is it more clear now?

br Daniel

Anonymous said...

Thank you so much !

Unknown said...

Should "weak" in the vocabulary list be "slab, slaba, slabo"? or is this irregular in some way?

Hvala lijepa!

Daniel N. said...

You' re completely right, that's a typo :( thanks! Nema na čemu... Daniel

Unknown said...

Nema na čemu! Thank you so much for putting the effort in - I'm loving learning Croatian so far all thanks to your work.

It is so refreshing being taught Croatian from something other than 'phrasebook' style - makes it so much easier to think on your own two feet. Hvala lijepa once more!!

Unknown said...

Dear Daniel, - - - There are two typo’s in the third sentence above the “Important” box. I think you meant to type “The other way around:” You’ve stated that you want us to point out errors, but if you’d rather not be bothered with such trivial ones, just say so – I won’t be offended! - - - br, Meticulous Joan

Daniel N. said...

Hi Joan, thanks a lot! Such errors are not caught by the spellchecker built in Firefox. Please point any errors, including "I don't understand it" -- that's the worst error from my point of view... lp, Daniel

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