Learn Croatian: Uvijek se hvali svojim napretkom. - He always boasts about his progress.

Uvijek se hvali svojim napretkom.

He always boasts about his progress.

Breakdown of Uvijek se hvali svojim napretkom.

Questions & Answers about Uvijek se hvali svojim napretkom.

Why is 'his progress' written as svojim napretkom in the instrumental case?

The verb hvaliti se (to boast or brag) is one of those verbs that require the instrumental case for the object involved. While English uses the preposition 'about', Croatian just uses the instrumental case with no preposition.

Why do we use svojim instead of njegovim to mean 'his'?

Svoj is a reflexive possessive pronoun that means 'one's own'. You must use it whenever the object belongs to the subject of the sentence. Since 'he' is boasting about his own progress, it has to be svojim. If you said njegovim, it would mean he was bragging about a different man's progress.

The dictionary word for progress is napredak. Why does it change so much to become napretkom?

Two things happen here! First, napredak has a 'fleeting a', meaning the 'a' in the last syllable disappears when case endings are added. That leaves us with the stem napredk-. Second, because 'd' (a voiced consonant) is now right next to 'k' (a voiceless consonant), the 'd' changes to a voiceless 't' to match it. This gives us the instrumental form napretkom.

Why does se come right after Uvijek?

The word se is an enclitic, which means it's a 'weak' word without its own stress. In Croatian, enclitics must generally sit in the second position of a sentence or clause. Here, it correctly takes the second spot right after the first word, Uvijek.