Questions & Answers about Moj brat je sličan ocu.
Why is it just ocu without a preposition for 'to'?
The adjective sličan (similar) requires the following noun to be in the Dative case, which already acts like the English 'to' or 'towards'. Because the Dative case itself shows the relationship, no extra preposition is needed.
The dictionary word for father is otac. Why is the Dative form ocu and not otacu?
This happens because of a common spelling rule called the 'fleeting a'. In many Croatian words ending in 'a' plus a consonant, that a disappears when you add a grammatical ending. Therefore, otac shrinks to ocu in the Dative case.
The translation says 'similar to our father.' Why isn't there a word for 'our' in the Croatian sentence?
Possessive pronouns like naš (our) or svoj (his own) are frequently dropped when talking about close family members, as long as the context makes it obvious whose father it is. It would be grammatically correct to say sličan našem ocu, but leaving the pronoun out sounds much more natural.
Why is the adjective sličan used instead of slični?
Because sličan comes after the verb je (is) to describe the subject, Croatian uses the short or 'indefinite' form of the adjective. Slični is the 'definite' form, which is mostly used when an adjective comes right before a noun, such as 'the similar brother'.
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