Word
On će kupiti knjige.
Meaning
He will buy the books.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Breakdown of On će kupiti knjige.
on
he
knjiga
book
htjeti
to want (intent, will)
kupiti
to buy (perfective)
Questions & Answers about On će kupiti knjige.
Why is će used here to mean "will"? I thought this lesson is about the verb "to want" (htjeti).
The short forms of the verb htjeti (to want), like će for "he/she/it", are actually used as helper verbs to create the future tense in Croatian. When you combine this short form with an infinitive like kupiti (to buy), the literal translation shifts from "wants to buy" to "will buy".
What happens if I use the full form hoće instead of će in this sentence?
It completely changes the meaning! The full form hoće translates clearly to "wants". If you say On hoće kupiti knjige, it means "He wants to buy the books." To just state that he "will" buy them, you must use the short form će.
Why doesn't the main verb change its ending for "he"? Why is it kupiti instead of a conjugated form like kupi?
Because the future tense in Croatian is built using the helper verb (će) plus the infinitive (the un-conjugated dictionary form) of the main verb. The helper verb će already tells us it is "he" who is doing the action, so kupiti (to buy) stays exactly as it is.
What case is the word knjige in here?