Breakdown of Diplomirao sam dvije tisuće pete godine.
biti
to be (sam, si, je)
godina
year
dvije
two (feminine)
peti
fifth
tisuća
thousand
diplomirati
to graduate
Questions & Answers about Diplomirao sam dvije tisuće pete godine.
Why is it pete godine instead of just the number pet?
In Croatian, you express years using ordinal numbers (like "first", "second", "fifth") rather than regular counting numbers. Also, to say that something happened in a specific year, you put the phrase in the genitive case. So, peta godina (the fifth year) becomes pete godine (in the fifth year).
Why does dvije tisuće stay as a regular number, while pete changes?
When reading a large number like a year, only the very last digit is treated as an ordinal number and changes its case. The thousands and hundreds stay as regular counting numbers. That is why it is dvije tisuće pete, not "dvije tisućite pete".
Why is it dvije tisuće instead of dva tisuće?
Why isn't there a word for "in" before the year?
When you use the genitive case to say "in the year...", the case itself carries the time meaning of "in" or "during". You do not need an extra preposition. Adding a word like u before the year here would actually be grammatically incorrect.
How can we tell the gender of the person speaking?
We know the speaker is male because the past tense verb diplomirao ends in -o. If a woman were saying this, she would use the feminine past tense ending and say diplomirala sam.
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