Word
Gdje je direktor muzeja?
Meaning
Where is the director of the museum?
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Lesson
Breakdown of Gdje je direktor muzeja?
biti
to be (sam, si, je)
gdje
where
muzej
museum (m)
direktor
director, manager (of a company)
Questions & Answers about Gdje je direktor muzeja?
Why does the word for museum have an '-a' at the end here?
In Croatian, to express possession or 'of something' (like 'of the museum'), we use the genitive case. The dictionary form is muzej. Because it is a masculine noun ending in a consonant, we add -a to make it muzeja in the genitive case.
Is direktor also in the genitive case?
No, direktor is the subject of the sentence, the person who 'is' somewhere. It stays in the nominative case, which is its basic dictionary form. Only the word that comes after it and means 'of the museum' changes to the genitive case.
Why isn't there a word for 'of' in the Croatian sentence?
Croatian doesn't use a separate preposition for 'of' in this type of phrase. The relationship is shown entirely by changing the end of the noun to the genitive case. The -a at the end of muzeja literally does the job of the English word 'of'.
How do I know that muzej takes the -a ending instead of a different genitive ending?
The genitive ending you use depends on the noun's gender. The dictionary form muzej ends in a consonant (the letter j), which tells us it is a masculine noun. Masculine and neuter nouns both take the -a ending in the genitive singular.