Learn Croatian: Radi brzo, kasnimo. - Work quickly, we are late.

Radi brzo, kasnimo.

Work quickly, we are late.

Breakdown of Radi brzo, kasnimo.

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Questions & Answers about Radi brzo, kasnimo.

How do we know Radi is a command here and not "he/she works"?

The verb raditi (to work) has the exact same form for the "he/she/it" present tense and the informal "you" command: radi. You can tell this is a command from the context of the sentence, just like telling someone "Work quickly!" in English.

How would I say this to a group of people, or to someone I need to be formal with?

You would say Radite brzo. To make a plural or formal command for this type of verb, you just take the singular command (radi) and add the plural ending -te to get radite.

Where is the word for "we" or "are" in kasnimo?

In English, "late" is an adjective, so you need the verb "are". In Croatian, being late is an action, expressed by the single verb kasniti (to be late). The -mo ending already tells us it is "we" who are late, so you do not need to add the pronoun mi (we).

Why is brzo used here instead of brz?

Brz is an adjective meaning "fast", used to describe nouns (like a fast car). Brzo is the adverb meaning "quickly". Since it describes how the person should do the action (working), we use the adverb form.