Breakdown of Često se družimo s glazbenicima na festivalima.
često
often
na
on, at / to, onto (with motion) / about (thinking about)
s
with
družiti se
to hang out
Questions & Answers about Često se družimo s glazbenicima na festivalima.
Both glazbenicima and festivalima end in -ima. Are they in the same case?
They look identical but are actually in different cases! The preposition s (with) triggers the instrumental case for glazbenicima. However, the preposition na (at or on) used for a static location triggers the locative case for festivalima. In Croatian, the plural endings for the dative, locative, and instrumental cases are always exactly the same (-ima for masculine and neuter nouns).
The word for musician is glazbenik. Why does it change to glazbenicima here instead of glazbenikima?
This happens because of a common sound change rule. When forming the plural of masculine nouns ending in -k, the -k changes to -c. So, glazbenik becomes the plural stem glazbenic-, and then you add the instrumental plural ending -ima to get glazbenicima.
Why do we need the word se in this sentence?
The verb družiti se (to hang out or socialize) is a reflexive verb, which means it always needs the short word se to be complete. Without se, the base verb družiti means to unite or join things together, which would sound very strange here!
Do we always need the preposition s before the instrumental case?