Breakdown of Direktor čeka sljedećeg klijenta.
čekati
to wait for
direktor
director, manager (of a company)
sljedeći
next
klijent
client
Questions & Answers about Direktor čeka sljedećeg klijenta.
Why does the adjective sljedeći change to sljedećeg here?
It is describing klijenta, which is a masculine noun for a living person (animate). When a masculine animate noun is the direct object (accusative case), its adjective needs a special ending. Because the base word sljedeći (next) ends in a soft sound, we add -eg to make sljedećeg.
Why does the noun klijent have an -a at the end?
It is the direct object of the verb, so it must be in the accusative case. For masculine nouns that represent living beings, the accusative ending is -a. This is how we know the client is the one being waited for!
In English we say we are waiting 'for' someone, but there is no word for 'for' here. Why?
In Croatian, the verb čekati (to wait) simply takes a direct object in the accusative case. You don't need an extra preposition like 'for'. You are literally saying 'The director waits the next client'.
How do we know the director is the one waiting and not the client?
The noun endings tell us who is doing what. Direktor has no added ending, meaning it is in the nominative case (the subject doing the action). klijenta has the accusative -a ending, marking it as the object. Because of these endings, we would still know the director is the one waiting even if the word order was backwards!