Word
Auto je ispred mosta.
Meaning
The car is in front of the bridge.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Breakdown of Auto je ispred mosta.
biti
to be (sam, si, je)
auto
car (short form)
ispred
in front of
most
bridge
Questions & Answers about Auto je ispred mosta.
Why does the word most (bridge) change to mosta here?
It changes because of the preposition ispred (in front of). Just like kod or do, ispred requires the noun that follows it to be in the genitive case. Since most is a regular masculine noun ending in a consonant, we add -a to form the genitive.
Since auto ends in -o, shouldn't it be a neuter noun?
That is usually the rule for nouns ending in -o like selo (village), but auto is a very common exception! It acts as a masculine noun because it is short for automobil. Any adjectives attached to it must also be masculine, such as moj novi auto (my new car).
Could I use ispred to mean 'before' in time or sequence?
No, ispred is only used for physical location in space. If you want to say 'before' referring to time, you must use prije. Luckily, prije also takes the genitive case, so 'before the bridge' in a time sequence would be prije mosta.
Does the opposite word for ispred also use the genitive case?