Breakdown of Odmaramo se u srpnju, kolovozu i rujnu.
i
and (additive)
u
in, into
odmarati se
to rest
srpanj
July
kolovoz
August
rujan
September
Questions & Answers about Odmaramo se u srpnju, kolovozu i rujnu.
Why do the months end in -u (srpnju, kolovozu, rujnu)?
They are in the locative case. When talking about an event happening "in" a specific month, you must use the preposition u followed by the locative case. Since all Croatian months are masculine nouns, they take the standard masculine locative ending -u.
The dictionary says July is srpanj and September is rujan. Why did the "a" disappear in this sentence?
This happens because of a common spelling rule called the "fleeting a". In many masculine nouns ending in -an or -anj, the a in the final syllable drops out when you add a case ending. So, srpanj + -u becomes srpnju, and rujan + -u becomes rujnu. Notice that kolovoz doesn't have this structure, so it simply becomes kolovozu.
Why is the word se used after odmaramo?
The Croatian verb for "to rest" is odmarati se. It is a reflexive verb, meaning it requires the reflexive pronoun se (oneself). So, odmaramo se essentially translates to "we are resting ourselves."
Do I need to repeat u before every month in the list?
No, you don't. Just like in English ("in July, August, and September"), when you have a list of items that all share the same preposition and grammatical case, you only need to use the preposition once at the beginning. The single u applies to all three months.
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