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Questions & Answers about Odmaraju se pokraj rijeke.
Why is there a se in this sentence when the English translation is just "They are resting"?
In Croatian, the verb "to rest" is odmarati se, which is a reflexive verb. Literally, it translates to "They are resting themselves." You must always include se when using this verb to say someone is taking a rest.
Why is the word for river spelled rijeke instead of rijeka?
The preposition pokraj (next to) belongs to the group of high-frequency prepositions that require the following noun to take the genitive case. For feminine nouns ending in -a like rijeka, the ending changes to -e in the genitive, making it rijeke.
Where is the word for "they" in this sentence?
Croatian usually drops subject pronouns like oni (they) because the verb ending already tells us who is doing the action. The -ju ending in odmaraju specifically means "they are resting." You would only add oni at the beginning for strong emphasis.
Why does se come right after the verb instead of later in the sentence?
The word se is an enclitic, which is a short, unaccented word. A strict rule in Croatian is that enclitics generally must take the second position in a sentence. Here, it naturally falls into the second spot right after the first word, Odmaraju.