Mehaničari su jučer popravili četiri stare kočnice.
The mechanics repaired four old brakes yesterday.
Breakdown of Mehaničari su jučer popravili četiri stare kočnice.
biti
to be (sam, si, je)
star
old
četiri
four
jučer
yesterday
popraviti
to fix
mehaničar
mechanic
kočnica
brake
Questions & Answers about Mehaničari su jučer popravili četiri stare kočnice.
Why is it stare kočnice after the number četiri?
This is the special rule for numbers 2, 3, and 4. After these numbers, nouns and adjectives take the genitive singular form. For a feminine noun like kočnica, the genitive singular is kočnice, and the matching adjective is stare. Conveniently, for feminine words, this looks exactly like the standard nominative plural!
How would the ending change if the mechanics repaired five old brakes instead of four?
For quantities of 5 and above, Croatian requires the genitive plural. The phrase would become pet starih kočnica. Notice how both the adjective and the noun change endings compared to the 2, 3, 4 rule.
Could we change the word order and say Mehaničari jučer su popravili...?
No, that would be grammatically incorrect. The auxiliary verb su is an enclitic, which means it is an unstressed word that is strictly required to take the second position in the sentence. It must come immediately after the first word or phrase, which here is Mehaničari.
Why is the perfective verb popravili used here instead of the imperfective popravljali?
We use it because the action was fully completed. The perfective verb popraviti indicates that the mechanics successfully finished fixing the brakes yesterday. If you used the imperfective popravljati, it would mean they were in the process of fixing them but might not have finished.
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