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Merv
Bilingual Diglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5274 days ago
414 posts - 749 votes 
Speaks: English*, Serbo-Croatian*
Studies: Spanish, French
| Message 9 of 22 25 April 2012 at 11:45pm | IP Logged |
benzionisrael wrote:
Merv wrote:
benzionisrael wrote:
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.
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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") |
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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. |
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Your best bet is wiktionary. Go into the website and then search for the noun you are interested in. There is a
declension tab on the right hand side. In many cases - certainly for common words - they will give you the full
declension with accents marked.
Asking even native speakers to put accents on text is pretty much hopeless. We "feel" the language and accents
are never used for real written texts - only for instructive purposes - so even we are not ready to start annotating
everything for you.
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 10 of 22 26 April 2012 at 12:03am | IP Logged |
benzionisrael wrote:
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.)
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1) Imam dobar auto/dobre aute (I have a good car/good cars)
2) Imam dobru bilježnicu/dobre bilježnice (I have a good notebook/good notebooks) - correct, in Serbian
notebook is sveska
3) Volim lepu cipelu/lepe cipele (I like the beautiful shoe/beautiful shoes) - correct, but the first sentence is not
natural, whereas the second is quite natural
4) Ona ima lepo ime. Njezino/Njeno ime je Kalisto (She has a nice name. Here name is Kalisto.)
- "her" has two versions: njezin(o/a) or njen(o/a) depending on the region. Njezin(o/a) is the more archaic form.
5) One imaju lepa imena (They have beautiful names)
6) On ima mali ključ/male ključeve (He has a small key/small keys) - check the plural of
masculine nouns
7) Imaš jednu interesantnu knjigu/neke interesantne knjige
(You have one interesting book/some interesting books) - the word for plural "some" is neke in this case.
You do not need to use either jednu or neke here ("some" is implied, unlike in languages that use articles, e.g.
Spanish, where you need to say "unos libros")
8) Ona voli debelog psa/debele pse (She likes the fat dog/fat dogs) - correct
9) Znaš li ti ovog krupnog/jakog čoveka? (Do you know that big man?) - veliki means "great" as in
Catherine the Great or a great mountain, great balloon, great ocean. It would not really be used when talking
about people, unless you want to say someone is great/talented/noble/etc. If you are describing him physically,
you need to use something like krupni ("corpulent" or "large") or jaki (euphemism for large but technically means
strong).
10)Ona piše dobro pismo/dobra pisma (She writes a good letter/good letters) - correct
11)Pišemo pisma s dobrim papirom (We write letters with good paper) - correct
12)Ja želim čitati njezinu/njenu interesantnu knjigu i njezina/njena dobra pisma
(I want to read her interesting book and her good letters) - see corrections to 4.) Also, as Serbian is a subject
drop language, you can and should drop the "Ja" at the beginning of the sentence.
13)Vidiš li ti moju malu teku i njegov veliki udžbenik?
(Do you see my small notebook and his large textbook?) - I don't know what "teka" is, but perhaps it is a Croatian
variant. Otherwise, correct.
14)Ja volim debelu osobu/debele ljude (I like the fat person/fat people) - Drop the "Ja." Also, čovek
here would tend to mean "man" rather than person. Person (in a genderless sense) is osoba or lik. If you wanted
to say "I love a fat man," then your sentence would be correct.
15)Ja volim mo(je)g(a) velikog druga/moje velike drugove
(I like my big friend/big friends) - Drop the "Ja." See 9.) for the proper usage of veliki. Also, there are four forms
of "my" here - mog(a) or mojeg(a), depending on the region. Mojog is not used anywhere.
16)Ti čitaš dobar roman/dobre romane. Dobri romani su zanimljivi.
(You read a good novel/good novels. Good novels are interesting - Correct, but it's best to drop the "Ti" at the
beginning.
Edited by Merv on 26 April 2012 at 12:07am
2 persons have 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 11 of 22 26 April 2012 at 12:37am | IP Logged |
benzionisrael wrote:
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.)
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1) Imam dobar auto/dobre aute.
2) correct
3) correct
4) Ona ima lepo ime. Njeno ime je Kalisto.
5) One imaju lepa imena.
6) On ima mali ključ/male ključeve.
7) Imaš jednu interesantnu knjigu/neke interesantne knjige.
8) correct
9) correct (although "that" is not "ovog", but "tog/onog")
10) correct
11) correct
12) Ja želim čitati njenu interesantnu knjigu i njena dobra pisma.
13) correct
14) correct
15) Ja volim svog velikog druga/svoje velike drugove.
16) correct
1: Auto is an exception. One would think that it's neutral, but it is in fact
masculine.
4/5: Ime has an expanded stem, imen-, outside of nom. and acc. singular. So it is
declined like this:
Nom. Ime / Imena
Acc. Ime / Imena
Gen. Imena /Imena
Dat./Loc. Imenu /Imenima
Instr. Imenom /Imenima
6: Ključ gets an extra -evi in the plural. (similar to drug, just not -ovi. It changes
to an e after a soft consonant.)
7: "Some" is neki/neke/neka, or nekoliko + gen.pl. (Nekoliko knjiga, imena, drugova)
12: Like in some of the other sentences, "her" is just "njen", adjusted to gender, case
etc.
15: "Svoj" is used as such:
On je poljubio svoju ženu. (He kissed his own wife.)
On je poljubio njegovu ženu. (He kissed his wife (someone else's))
Basically, if the subject is connected to the other part, use "svoj".
I have my own car. - Imam svoj auto.
You have your own book. - Imaš svoju knjigu.
Razgovarao je sa svojim prijateljima. - He was talking to his own friends. (match)
Razgovarao je sa njegovim prijateljima. - He was talking to their friends. (no match)
Edited by Danac on 26 April 2012 at 12:41am
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 12 of 22 26 April 2012 at 12:48am | IP Logged |
Danac wrote:
benzionisrael wrote:
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.)
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1) Imam dobar auto/dobre aute.
2) correct
3) correct
4) Ona ima lepo ime. Njeno ime je Kalisto.
5) One imaju lepa imena.
6) On ima mali ključ/male ključeve.
7) Imaš jednu interesantnu knjigu/neke interesantne knjige.
8) correct
9) correct (although "that" is not "ovog", but "tog/onog")
10) correct
11) correct
12) Ja želim čitati njenu interesantnu knjigu i njena dobra pisma.
13) correct
14) correct
15) Ja volim svog velikog druga/svoje velike drugove.
16) correct
1: Auto is an exception. One would think that it's neutral, but it is in fact
masculine.
4/5: Ime has an expanded stem, imen-, outside of nom. and acc. singular. So it is
declined like this:
Nom. Ime / Imena
Acc. Ime / Imena
Gen. Imena /Imena
Dat./Loc. Imenu /Imenima
Instr. Imenom /Imenima
6: Ključ gets an extra -evi in the plural. (similar to drug, just not -ovi. It changes
to an e after a soft consonant.)
7: "Some" is neki/neke/neka, or nekoliko + gen.pl. (Nekoliko knjiga, imena, drugova)
12: Like in some of the other sentences, "her" is just "njen", adjusted to gender, case
etc.
15: "Svoj" is used as such:
On je poljubio svoju ženu. (He kissed his own wife.)
On je poljubio njegovu ženu. (He kissed his wife (someone else's))
Basically, if the subject is connected to the other part, use "svoj".
I have my own car. - Imam svoj auto.
You have your own book. - Imaš svoju knjigu.
Razgovarao je sa svojim prijateljima. - He was talking to his own friends. (match)
Razgovarao je sa njegovim prijateljima. - He was talking to their friends. (no match) |
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Auto is not so much an exception as just a shortened "automobil," which is clearly masculine.
As for svoj, you're right, but I didn't notice it in that sentence since the distinction is not critical there. I and other
native speakers occasionally interchange svoj with moj/tvoj. Where it really matters is when there is ambiguity in
the 3rd person (the last two sentences you gave as examples).
2 persons have voted this message useful
| benzionisrael
Triglot
Groupie
Spain
Joined 4666 days ago
79 posts - 142 votes
Speaks: English*, Japanese, SpanishB2
| Message 13 of 22 26 April 2012 at 1:43am | IP Logged |
Merv wrote:
benzionisrael wrote:
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.)
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1) Imam dobar auto/dobre aute (I have a good car/good cars)
2) Imam dobru bilježnicu/dobre bilježnice (I have a good notebook/good notebooks) - correct, in Serbian
notebook is sveska
3) Volim lepu cipelu/lepe cipele (I like the beautiful shoe/beautiful shoes) - correct, but the first sentence is not
natural, whereas the second is quite natural
4) Ona ima lepo ime. Njezino/Njeno ime je Kalisto (She has a nice name. Here name is Kalisto.)
- "her" has two versions: njezin(o/a) or njen(o/a) depending on the region. Njezin(o/a) is the more archaic form.
5) One imaju lepa imena (They have beautiful names)
6) On ima mali ključ/male ključeve (He has a small key/small keys) - check the plural of
masculine nouns
7) Imaš jednu interesantnu knjigu/neke interesantne knjige
(You have one interesting book/some interesting books) - the word for plural "some" is neke in this case.
You do not need to use either jednu or neke here ("some" is implied, unlike in languages that use articles, e.g.
Spanish, where you need to say "unos libros")
8) Ona voli debelog psa/debele pse (She likes the fat dog/fat dogs) - correct
9) Znaš li ti ovog krupnog/jakog čoveka? (Do you know that big man?) - veliki means "great" as in
Catherine the Great or a great mountain, great balloon, great ocean. It would not really be used when talking
about people, unless you want to say someone is great/talented/noble/etc. If you are describing him physically,
you need to use something like krupni ("corpulent" or "large") or jaki (euphemism for large but technically means
strong).
10)Ona piše dobro pismo/dobra pisma (She writes a good letter/good letters) - correct
11)Pišemo pisma s dobrim papirom (We write letters with good paper) - correct
12)Ja želim čitati njezinu/njenu interesantnu knjigu i njezina/njena dobra pisma
(I want to read her interesting book and her good letters) - see corrections to 4.) Also, as Serbian is a subject
drop language, you can and should drop the "Ja" at the beginning of the sentence.
13)Vidiš li ti moju malu teku i njegov veliki udžbenik?
(Do you see my small notebook and his large textbook?) - I don't know what "teka" is, but perhaps it is a Croatian
variant. Otherwise, correct.
14)Ja volim debelu osobu/debele ljude (I like the fat person/fat people) - Drop the "Ja." Also, čovek
here would tend to mean "man" rather than person. Person (in a genderless sense) is osoba or lik. If you wanted
to say "I love a fat man," then your sentence would be correct.
15)Ja volim mo(je)g(a) velikog druga/moje velike drugove
(I like my big friend/big friends) - Drop the "Ja." See 9.) for the proper usage of veliki. Also, there are four forms
of "my" here - mog(a) or mojeg(a), depending on the region. Mojog is not used anywhere.
16)Ti čitaš dobar roman/dobre romane. Dobri romani su zanimljivi.
(You read a good novel/good novels. Good novels are interesting - Correct, but it's best to drop the "Ti" at the
beginning. |
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1) Thanks for explaining why auto is masculine and not neuter and why therefore we have dobar auto, dobri auti, etc.
3) "Volim lepu cipelu" (I like the nice shoe) could make sense if someone had found two shoes of distinct designs in a trashcan and asked his friend "which one do you like?" and the friend responded "I like the beautiful one (as opposed to the ugly one)". But in reality I just wanted to plactise the declension in both singular and plural :)
14) Teka is how they say sveska in Bosnia and is included in my textbook along with bilježnica.
Also thanks for explaining the use of osoba, njeno, mojeg, etc.
Edited by benzionisrael on 26 April 2012 at 1:43am
1 person has voted this message useful
| benzionisrael
Triglot
Groupie
Spain
Joined 4666 days ago
79 posts - 142 votes
Speaks: English*, Japanese, SpanishB2
| Message 14 of 22 26 April 2012 at 1:57am | IP Logged |
Danac wrote:
15: "Svoj" is used as such:
On je poljubio svoju ženu. (He kissed his own wife.)
On je poljubio njegovu ženu. (He kissed his wife (someone else's))
Basically, if the subject is connected to the other part, use "svoj".
I have my own car. - Imam svoj auto.
You have your own book. - Imaš svoju knjigu.
Razgovarao je sa svojim prijateljima. - He was talking to his own friends. (match)
Razgovarao je sa njegovim prijateljima. - He was talking to their friends. (no match) |
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So that means that any of the following can be used, right?
a) Volim moju lepu ženu
b) Volim svoju lepu ženu
(I love my beautiful wife)
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 15 of 22 26 April 2012 at 1:58pm | IP Logged |
benzionisrael wrote:
Danac wrote:
15: "Svoj" is used as such:
On je poljubio svoju ženu. (He kissed his own wife.)
On je poljubio njegovu ženu. (He kissed his wife (someone else's))
Basically, if the subject is connected to the other part, use "svoj".
I have my own car. - Imam svoj auto.
You have your own book. - Imaš svoju knjigu.
Razgovarao je sa svojim prijateljima. - He was talking to his own friends. (match)
Razgovarao je sa njegovim prijateljima. - He was talking to their friends. (no match)
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So that means that any of the following can be used, right?
a) Volim moju lepu ženu
b) Volim svoju lepu ženu
(I love my beautiful wife) |
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Technically and formally, only b) is correct, but as Merv explains, native speakers
occasionally use the other pronouns where "svoj" should have been used. I won't say
it's equally correct not to use svoj, but it does happen in spoken language.
My opinion is that there's no point in substituting other words for "svoj", since it is
the formally correct form. However, I'll give you a few more examples, and a bit more
explanation.
In all persons, singular and plural, "svoj" and its other forms are used when there's a
direct connection between subject and object (ie. if it's the same: I - my, you - your
etc.), but also between subjects and other parts of the sentence. Formally, "svoj" is
the only option, but in reality and in speech (as per Merv's message), you'll hear
other pronouns used occasionally.
Volim svoju ženu. (I love my wife)
Iznevjerio si svoju ženu. (You betrayed/cheated on your wife)
Skrio je svoje izvore. (He hid his own sources)
Mrzili smo svoje učitelje. (We hated our teachers)
Večerali ste kod svojih roditelja? (You had dinner at your parents'?)
Uzeli su svoje pare i otišli. (They took their own money and left)
There's no substitute for "svoj" in these sentences, but the more important ones to
watch for are the ones in third person, where you'd imply some very different things
without "svoj". That doesn't mean that you shouldn't use it in the other persons,
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 16 of 22 26 April 2012 at 2:56pm | IP Logged |
Danac wrote:
benzionisrael wrote:
Danac wrote:
15: "Svoj" is used as such:
On je poljubio svoju ženu. (He kissed his own wife.)
On je poljubio njegovu ženu. (He kissed his wife (someone else's))
Basically, if the subject is connected to the other part, use "svoj".
I have my own car. - Imam svoj auto.
You have your own book. - Imaš svoju knjigu.
Razgovarao je sa svojim prijateljima. - He was talking to his own friends. (match)
Razgovarao je sa njegovim prijateljima. - He was talking to their friends. (no match)
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So that means that any of the following can be used, right?
a) Volim moju lepu ženu
b) Volim svoju lepu ženu
(I love my beautiful wife) |
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Technically and formally, only b) is correct, but as Merv explains, native speakers
occasionally use the other pronouns where "svoj" should have been used. I won't say
it's equally correct not to use svoj, but it does happen in spoken language.
My opinion is that there's no point in substituting other words for "svoj", since it is
the formally correct form. However, I'll give you a few more examples, and a bit more
explanation.
In all persons, singular and plural, "svoj" and its other forms are used when there's a
direct connection between subject and object (ie. if it's the same: I - my, you - your
etc.), but also between subjects and other parts of the sentence. Formally, "svoj" is
the only option, but in reality and in speech (as per Merv's message), you'll hear
other pronouns used occasionally.
Volim svoju ženu. (I love my wife)
Iznevjerio si svoju ženu. (You betrayed/cheated on your wife)
Skrio je svoje izvore. (He hid his own sources)
Mrzili smo svoje učitelje. (We hated our teachers)
Večerali ste kod svojih roditelja? (You had dinner at your parents'?)
Uzeli su svoje pare i otišli. (They took their own money and left)
There's no substitute for "svoj" in these sentences, but the more important ones to
watch for are the ones in third person, where you'd imply some very different things
without "svoj". That doesn't mean that you shouldn't use it in the other persons,
though. |
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Thanks, and I'll totally agree with this. Strictly speaking, svoj is correct in all the instances, but the only case
where I really notice its absence is when there are multiple 3rd person actors.
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