Questions & Answers about Dječak voli djeda.
Why is the word for grandfather written as djeda instead of just djed?
Djed is the dictionary form, which is used for the subject of a sentence. Because the grandfather is the one receiving the action (the object being loved), the word must change to its object form. In Croatian, when a masculine noun is alive (a person or an animal), we add an -a to the end of it to show it is the object.
Since a boy is also alive, why doesn't dječak get an -a at the end too?
Dječak is the subject of the sentence—the person doing the loving. We only add the -a ending to the object (the person receiving the action). If we flipped the meaning so the grandfather loved the boy, the boy would become the object and the sentence would be Djed voli dječaka.
How do we know who loves who? Is it just because dječak comes first in the sentence?
Not exactly! While Croatian often puts the subject first like in English, it is actually the word endings that tell us who is doing what. Because djeda has the -a object ending, we know he is the one being loved, no matter where he sits in the sentence. Djeda voli dječak would still mean "The boy loves the grandfather."
If the boy loved a movie (film) instead of his grandfather, would it be filma?
No, it would just be film. The rule to add -a to the object form only applies to masculine nouns that are alive (animate), like people or animals. For inanimate masculine objects (like a movie, a table, or a sandwich), the object form is exactly the same as the dictionary form: Dječak voli film.
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