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Serbo-Croatian cases: are these correct? | ||
Tags: Serbo-Croatian | Morphology | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Questions About Your Target Languages |  | |
| benzionisrael Triglot Groupie Spain Joined 4666 days ago 79 posts - 142 votes  Speaks: English*, Japanese, SpanishB2 | Message 1 of 22 25 April 2012 at 2:09am | IP Logged | |||||
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I am trying to memorize the SC nominal and adjectival case endings and their use. In order to try to understand them and practice their usage I attempted to make some example sentences for many of the cases. Since I have only been learning SC for two days my vocabulary and grammar are poor and limited so some of my practice sentences will be strange (grammatically) or odd (regarding their meaning).
Please take a look and correct me if my sentences are gramatically wrong. My attempt will come first followed by what I mean to say in brackets. 1) Veliki pas jede malu mačku. (The big dog eats the small cat) 2) Dobro pismo je interesno. (The good letter is interesting) 3) Lepa žena čita dobru knjigu. (The beautiful woman reads a good book) 4) Veliki psi jedu jednog debelog čovek i male mačke. (The big dogs eat one fat man and small cats) 5) Dobra pisma su interesna. (The good books are interesting) 6) Lepe devojke čitu dobre knjige. (The beautiful girls read good books) 7) Dobar čovek govori u dobrom drugu i u lepim ženama. (The good man speaks to a good friend and beautiful women) 8) Lepa žena govori u dobrim čovekima. (The beautiful women speaks to good men) Are these OK? because for me the cases seem a little confusing. Edited by benzionisrael on 25 April 2012 at 2:12am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Danac Diglot Senior Member Denmark Joined 5349 days ago 162 posts - 257 votes Speaks: Danish*, English Studies: German, Serbo-Croatian, French, Russian, Esperanto | Message 2 of 22 25 April 2012 at 2:49am | IP Logged | |||||
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1) correct
2) Dobro pismo je interesantno/zanimljivo. (both are fine) 3) correct 4) Veliki psi jedu jednog debelog čoveka i male mačke. 5) Dobra pisma su interesantna/zanimljiva. 6) Lepe devojke čitaju dobre knjige. 7) Dobar čovek govori sa dobrim drugom i lepim ženama. 8) Lepa žena govori sa dobrim ljudima. I won't say a lot about your sentences here, but one thing that is good to know is that the plural of "čovek" is "ljudi". Nom. Ljudi Acc. Ljude Gen. Ljudi Dat./Loc./Instr. Ljudima Also, I'd say the best way to render the expression "speak to someone" in BCS is probably "govoriti sa nekim". 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| benzionisrael Triglot Groupie Spain Joined 4666 days ago 79 posts - 142 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese, SpanishB2 | Message 3 of 22 25 April 2012 at 1:29pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Thanks for responding.
I would just like to ask another question about the length of the vowels or changes in their lenguage depending on the case ending. Nsg: dobar student, dobro pismo, lepa studentkinja Agn: dobrog studenta, dobra pisma, lepu studentkinju Npl: dobri studenti, dobra pisma, lepe studentkinje Apl: dobre studente, dobra pisma, lepe studentkinje In the phrases above could you please mark where the long vowels fall? If possible please mark them with bold. Edited by benzionisrael on 25 April 2012 at 1:30pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Merv Bilingual Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5274 days ago 414 posts - 749 votes Speaks: English*, Serbo-Croatian* Studies: Spanish, French | Message 4 of 22 25 April 2012 at 2:17pm | IP Logged | |||||
Correct in all points, but I think it would be better to say "razgovara" instead of "govori" because the OP is going more for conversing. Govori is still correct, though. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Merv Bilingual Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5274 days ago 414 posts - 749 votes Speaks: English*, Serbo-Croatian* Studies: Spanish, French | Message 5 of 22 25 April 2012 at 2:34pm | IP Logged | |||||
This is a fine distinction that will slow you down to the point of not learning anything. Ignore accent markings. What you should do is listen carefully to native speakers pronouncing various words. In particular, if you see a certain word mean rather different things, but which sounds superficially the same in both cases, listen carefully over and over to see if you can notice the difference. Accent markings won't teach you how to reproduce these fine distinctions, but listening carefully and repeating, will. E.g. žèna (singular nominative "woman") vs. žénā (plural genitive "of women") 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Danac Diglot Senior Member Denmark Joined 5349 days ago 162 posts - 257 votes Speaks: Danish*, English Studies: German, Serbo-Croatian, French, Russian, Esperanto | Message 6 of 22 25 April 2012 at 3:31pm | IP Logged | |||||
Merv, I thought about it briefly myself, too, but it's good that you bring it up. I was trying to avoid too much confusion, I think. As for vowel length and another grammar point which is also connected to this, the pitch accents (they can be short and long as well), I wouldn't worry too much about it. As far as I've observed, things like vowel length and pitch accents more or less vary from town to town, occasionally, and they don't fit neatly within the borders of the new countries of the former Yugoslavia, either, ie. there are quite a lot of differences between speakers from Dubrovnik, Zagreb and Osijek, although they all speak Croatian. There are few rules I've followed in learning the stress patterns in BCS, and I've never had any formal instruction in pitch accents etc., so I wouldn't say it's a high priority. One rule is that words never have final stress. There are a few exceptions, typically regarding loan words, but the rule is mostly true. The genetive plural is, however, known to be especially long, and it might be good to keep this in mind. Apart from that, don't stress this aspect too much. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| benzionisrael Triglot Groupie Spain Joined 4666 days ago 79 posts - 142 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese, SpanishB2 | Message 7 of 22 25 April 2012 at 8:37pm | IP Logged | |||||
I understand what you say, but I really would like someone to put the standard long vowel marks on the phases above where appropriate because I am just getting accustomed to the case system and would like to get it down well before moving on to anything else. My textbook doesn´t teach all the cases at once. I found some charts and them compiled one myself and started writing out some practice sentences. Since my textbook doesn´t teach this in a systematic and holistic way, I would like someone to help me out with the vowel lengths so that I can update my declension chart. Of course later I am going to listen to dialogues by native speakers, but at this moment in time I would really like to get down the conjugation and usage of the nominal and adjectival cases. I would be very appreciative if you guys could help me out with this. Thank you. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| benzionisrael Triglot Groupie Spain Joined 4666 days ago 79 posts - 142 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese, SpanishB2 | Message 8 of 22 25 April 2012 at 9:16pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I have done more practice. Since I don´t have a teacher but only a few textbooks and the internet I would like some of the speakers or learners to check my practice sentences and correct them again if it wouldn´t be too much trouble.
1) Imam dobro auto/dobra auta (I have a good car/good cars) 2) Imam dobru bilježnicu/dobre bilježnice (I have a good notebook/good notebooks) 3) Volim lepu cipelu/lepe cipele (I like the beautiful shoe/beautiful shoes) 4) Ona ima lepo ime. Njenine ime je Kalisto (She has a nice name. Here name is Kalisto.) 5) One imaju lepa ima (They have beautiful names) 6) On ima malo ključ/mala ključa (He has a small key/small keys) 7) Imaš jednu interesantnu knjigu/jedne interesantne knjige (You have one interesting book/some interesting books) 8) Ona voli debelog psa/debele pse (She likes the fat dog/fat dogs) 9) Znaš li ti ovog velikog čoveka? (Do you know that big man?) 10)Ona piše dobro pismo/dobra pisma (She writes a good letter/good letters) 11)Pišemo pisma s dobrim papirom (We write letters with good paper) 12)Ja želim čitati njeninu interesantnu knjigu i njenina dobra pisma (I want to read her interesting book and her good letters) 13)Vidiš li ti moju malu teku i njegov veliki udžbenik? (Do you see my small notebook and his large textbook?) 14)Ja volim debelog čoveka/debele ljude (I like the fat person/fat people) 15)Ja volim mojog velikog druga/moje velike drugove (I like my big friend/big friends) 16)Ti čitaš dobar roman/dobre romane. Dobri romani su zanimljivi. (You read a good novel/good novels. Good novels are interesting.) Edited by benzionisrael on 25 April 2012 at 9:20pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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