Breakdown of Djevojka s tetovažom pije sok s ledom.
sok
juice
piti
to drink
led
ice
djevojka
girl; girlfriend
s
with
tetovaža
tattoo
Questions & Answers about Djevojka s tetovažom pije sok s ledom.
This sentence uses s twice. Is it doing the exact same job both times?
Both are examples of the preposition s (with) followed by the instrumental case, which is what you are learning now! However, they show two slightly different uses: s tetovažom describes a physical attribute of the girl, while s ledom describes the contents or additions to the juice.
Why do both tetovaža (feminine) and led (masculine) get the exact same -om ending here?
The preposition s requires the instrumental case. For most feminine nouns ending in -a (like tetovaža), the -a changes to -om. Most masculine nouns (like led) also take the -om ending in the instrumental case (unless they end in a soft consonant, which takes -em). They are different noun genders that just happen to share the same ending here!
Why does the sentence use the short form s instead of sa?
You only use the longer form sa when the next word starts with a hissing sound that makes s hard to pronounce (like s, z, š, or ž). Because tetovaža starts with a t and led starts with an l, the short form s is easy to say and correct.
Since the girl is drinking the juice, shouldn't sok change its ending for the accusative case?
It actually is in the accusative case! Because sok is a masculine inanimate noun (a non-living thing), its accusative form looks exactly the same as its dictionary form. If she were drinking a feminine noun like kava (coffee), it would change to kavu.
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