Breakdown of Uvijek čitam, ali danas želim pročitati pismo.
danas
today
pismo
letter
ali
but (strong contrast)
čitati
to read
uvijek
always
željeti
to want
pročitati
to read (perfective)
Questions & Answers about Uvijek čitam, ali danas želim pročitati pismo.
Why does this sentence use two different words for "read" (čitam and pročitati)?
This is the difference between imperfective and perfective verbs! Čitam (from čitati) is imperfective, used for continuous or repeated actions. This matches perfectly with the word uvijek (always). Pročitati is perfective, focusing on the completion of an action. You use it here because you want to read that specific letter from start to finish.
How can I tell that pročitati is the perfective version of čitati?
A very common way to turn an imperfective verb into a perfective one in Croatian is by adding a short prefix to the beginning of the word. In this case, adding the prefix pro- to čitati creates the perfective verb pročitati.
Why is pročitati left in its base form (infinitive) instead of being conjugated?
It comes directly after the conjugated verb želim (I want). Just like in English where we say "I want to read" rather than "I want I read", the second verb in this kind of pairing stays in the infinitive form in Croatian.
Since pismo (letter) is the object being read, shouldn't its ending change for the accusative case?
It actually is in the accusative case! However, pismo is a neuter noun because it ends in -o. For all neuter nouns, the accusative form is exactly the same as the nominative (dictionary) form, so it looks like it didn't change at all.
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