Breakdown of Ove knjige govore o povijesti i politici.
knjiga
book
ovaj
this (m) / ova (f), ovo (n)
i
and (additive)
govoriti
to speak
o
about / on (dependent on)
politika
politics
povijest
history
Questions & Answers about Ove knjige govore o povijesti i politici.
The dictionary word for "history" is povijest. Why does it change to povijesti here?
After the preposition o (about), we must use the locative case. Povijest is a special type of feminine noun that ends in a consonant instead of the usual -a. For these nouns, the locative ending is -i, making it povijesti.
Why does politika (politics) change to politici with a "c"?
This is also in the locative case because of the preposition o. Regular feminine nouns ending in -a drop the -a and take an -i ending in the locative case. However, when a noun ends in -ka, -ga, or -ha (like politika), the consonant changes before the -i ending to make it easier to say. The k changes to c, giving us politici.
Can I use pričaju instead of govore to say the books "talk" about something?
You could, and people would understand you, but the verb govoriti (to speak/talk) paired with o is the standard, most natural way in Croatian to describe what a book, movie, or article is about.
Why is the word for "these" ove instead of ovi?
Knjiga (book) is a feminine noun. Because we are talking about multiple books in the subject of the sentence, we need the feminine plural form. For demonstrative words like "this" or "these", the feminine plural is ove. You would use ovi for masculine plural nouns.
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