Breakdown of Četvrti tjedan je težak.
biti
to be (sam, si, je)
težak
difficult / severe, serious
tjedan
week
četvrti
fourth
Questions & Answers about Četvrti tjedan je težak.
Why do we use četvrti here instead of četiri?
Četiri is the regular number "four", but here we are saying "fourth". In Croatian, ordinal numbers (first, second, third, etc.) behave exactly like adjectives. This means they must match the noun they describe in gender, number, and case. Since tjedan (week) is masculine, singular, and the subject of the sentence (nominative case), we use the masculine singular nominative form četvrti.
Why does četvrti end in -i while težak ends in a consonant, if both describe a masculine noun?
Ordinal numbers in Croatian always use the "definite" adjective endings, meaning their masculine nominative form always ends in -i (like četvrti). Regular adjectives like težak (hard/difficult) can be definite or indefinite. Here, težak is indefinite (ending in a consonant) because we are stating a general property of the week with the verb je (is).
Doesn't the word težak usually mean "heavy"?
Yes, its literal meaning is "heavy" for physical objects. However, in Croatian, it is also the standard word for "hard" or "difficult" when talking about tasks, situations, or time periods, such as a difficult week.
If I wanted to say "the fourth year is hard" using the feminine noun godina (year), how would the words change?
You would say: Četvrta godina je teška. The ordinal number changes to the feminine četvrta. The adjective težak has a "fleeting a", which means when you add the feminine -a ending, the a before the k drops out, making it teška.
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