Breakdown of Ima dugu kosu i često se češlja.
i
and (additive)
često
often
imati
to have
kosa
hair
dug
long
češljati se
to comb one's hair
Questions & Answers about Ima dugu kosu i često se češlja.
Why is the word se used here with the verb?
The verb češljati means "to comb." To say that someone is combing their own hair (literally combing themselves), Croatian uses the reflexive pronoun se. So, se češlja simply means "she combs herself."
Why is se placed before the verb (često se češlja) instead of after it?
The word se is a special type of short word (a clitic) that generally likes to be in the second position of a sentence or clause. In the second half of this sentence, često (often) takes the first spot, so se tucks in right after it, before the verb.
The English translation says "her hair" twice, but I only see kosu once. Why?
In Croatian, saying se češlja (she combs herself) already perfectly communicates that she is combing her hair. You don't need to repeat kosu (hair) or add a word for "her" because the reflexive pronoun se already shows who is receiving the action.
Why does the sentence use dugu kosu instead of the dictionary form duga kosa?
Because "long hair" is the direct object here—it is the thing that she has. In Croatian, direct objects take the accusative case. For feminine words ending in -a like duga kosa, the endings change to -u to become dugu kosu.
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