Breakdown of On je jak kao medvjed, a moj brat je jak kao bik.
biti
to be (sam, si, je)
a
and / but
on
he
brat
brother
Questions & Answers about On je jak kao medvjed, a moj brat je jak kao bik.
Why does the Croatian sentence only say jak kao medvjed instead of having two words for "as ... as"?
In Croatian, you don't need a word before the adjective when making simple comparisons with kao. While English says "as strong as a bear", Croatian literally says "strong like a bear" (jak kao medvjed). If you want to emphasize the exact equality, you can add jednako or isto before the adjective (like jednako jak kao medvjed), but it is very common to just leave it out.
Why is a used for "and" here instead of i?
The word a is a contrastive conjunction that can mean "and" or "but". You use it when shifting focus to a new subject or comparing two different things. Here, the sentence shifts focus from "he" (on) to "my brother" (moj brat), so a is the perfect choice. If you used i, it would sound like you are just adding similar items to a continuous list.
If I were talking about my sister, would the phrase still be jak kao medvjed?
No, the adjective must agree with the subject's gender. If you were talking about your sister (moja sestra), she is feminine, so you would use the feminine form of the adjective: jaka. The phrase becomes jaka kao medvjed. Notice that the noun medvjed (bear) stays exactly the same, because you are still comparing her to a bear!
Are medvjed (bear) and (bull) the standard animals used for this idiom in Croatian?