Word
Slavili smo rođendan i jeli tortu.
Meaning
We celebrated a birthday and ate cake.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Breakdown of Slavili smo rođendan i jeli tortu.
biti
to be (sam, si, je)
i
and (additive)
jesti
to eat
slaviti
to celebrate
Questions & Answers about Slavili smo rođendan i jeli tortu.
Where is the word for "we" in this sentence?
In Croatian, you often drop subject pronouns like mi (we) because the verbs already tell you who is doing the action. Here, the helper verb smo makes it clear that "we" did the celebrating and eating.
Why do the past tense verbs slavili and jeli end in -i?
In the past tense, the main verb changes its ending based on who did the action. The -i ending is for a plural subject that includes at least one male (or a mixed group of men and women). If "we" meant a group of only women, the verbs would end in -e (slavile and jele).
Why doesn't the second verb have its own helper verb, like jeli smo?
When you have two past tense verbs connected by i (and) for the exact same subject, you don't need to repeat the helper verb. The smo applies to both slavili (celebrated) and jeli (ate).
Why is the word for cake tortu instead of torta?
Because the cake is the direct object receiving the action of being eaten, it must be in the accusative case. For feminine nouns ending in -a like torta, the ending changes to -u in this case.