Breakdown of Rado čuvam psa, ali danas ti ga moram vratiti.
danas
today
ali
but (strong contrast)
ga
him, it (accusative clitic)
pas
dog
Questions & Answers about Rado čuvam psa, ali danas ti ga moram vratiti.
Why is it ti ga and not ga ti?
Both ti (to you) and ga (him) are short, unstressed words called enclitics. When you have multiple enclitics together in a sentence, they must follow a strict order. The rule is that the dative case (who is receiving the action, like ti) always comes before the accusative case (the direct object, like ga).
Why are ti and ga placed right after danas?
Enclitics naturally want to be in the second position of their grammatical clause. The word ali (but) connects two separate thoughts and starts a new clause. This makes danas (today) the first word of that new clause. Therefore, the enclitic group ti ga jumps right into the second spot, directly after danas.
The dictionary word for dog is pas. Why is it psa here?
psa is the accusative (direct object) form of pas because the dog is the thing being looked after. When pas gets a grammatical ending, the a in the middle drops out. This is a very common spelling change in Croatian called the fleeting a. Because a dog is a living animal, its accusative form looks exactly like its genitive form.
Does rado čuvam strictly mean gladly keep?
Literally, yes. rado means gladly and čuvam means I look after or I keep. However, using rado alongside a verb is the most common and natural way in Croatian to say you like doing an action. So here, it perfectly translates the feeling of I like looking after the dog.