When you want to give credit for a success or express that a positive outcome happened because of a specific cause, you can use the preposition zahvaljujući ("thanks to" or "owing to").
| thanks to | zahvaljujući |
The Dative Case
The key rule when using zahvaljujući is that it must always be followed by the Dative case.
For regular feminine nouns ending in -a, like investicija (investment) and inovacija (innovation), the Dative ending is -i:
| The entrepreneur realized his plan thanks to the investment. | Poduzetnik je ostvario svoj plan zahvaljujući investiciji. |
| Thanks to the innovation, interest in the product is growing fast. | Zahvaljujući inovaciji, interes za proizvod brzo raste. |
Abstract Traits and Neuter Nouns
Many words related to business and personal traits are feminine nouns that end in a consonant, such as upornost (persistence) and stručnost (expertise). In the Dative case, these simply add an -i to the end (upornosti, stručnosti).
| The entrepreneur successfully launched the product thanks to persistence. | Poduzetnik je uspješno lansirao proizvod zahvaljujući upornosti. |
For neuter nouns ending in -o, such as mentorstvo (mentorship), the Dative ending is -u (mentorstvu). You can easily list multiple beneficial causes together to explain a success or an advantage:
| She succeeded in business thanks to expertise and mentorship. | Uspjela je u poslu zahvaljujući stručnosti i mentorstvu. |
| Thanks to your mentorship and expertise, we have an advantage. | Zahvaljujući vašem mentorstvu i stručnosti, imamo prednost. |
