Breakdown of Želiš li se vjenčati s njim?
on
he
li
question particle
željeti
to want
s
with
vjenčati se
to get married
Questions & Answers about Želiš li se vjenčati s njim?
Why is it s njim instead of s on?
In Croatian, the preposition s (with) requires the following word to be in the instrumental case. The instrumental form of the pronoun on (he) is njim. So, 'with him' is always s njim.
Why does the Croatian sentence use s (with) if the English translation is 'married to'?
Prepositions often do not translate word-for-word between languages. In English, you get married 'to' someone, but in Croatian, the phrase is vjenčati se s (literally 'to marry oneself with'). That is why we use s followed by the instrumental case here.
Why is there a se here?
The verb vjenčati se (to get married) is reflexive in Croatian. If you just say vjenčati, it means to officiate a wedding (like a priest or registrar marrying a couple). To say that you are the one getting married, you must include se.
Why are the words li and se placed exactly in that order?
Both li (the question particle) and se (the reflexive pronoun) are clitics. Clitics are short, unstressed words that usually jump to the second position in a sentence. When there are multiple clitics together, they must follow a strict order, and the question word li always comes before the reflexive pronoun se.
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