Breakdown of Junak je hrabro napao neprijatelja i ubio zmaja.
biti
to be (sam, si, je)
i
and (additive)
zmaj
dragon
junak
hero
hrabro
bravely
napasti
to attack
neprijatelj
enemy
ubiti
to kill
Questions & Answers about Junak je hrabro napao neprijatelja i ubio zmaja.
Both napao and ubio are perfective verbs. Why are they the right choice here?
This sentence describes a sequence of completed past actions: first he attacked, then he killed the dragon. To show that one action finished before the next one started, Croatian uses perfective verbs. If we used imperfective verbs, it would mean the attacking and killing were happening at the same time or repeatedly.
Why is there only one je in this sentence even though there are two verbs in the past tense?
You don't need to repeat the auxiliary verb (je) when connecting two past tense actions with i (and). The single je applies to both napao (attacked) and ubio (killed).
Both neprijatelja (enemy) and zmaja (dragon) end in -a. Since they are the direct objects being attacked and killed, shouldn't they be in the accusative case?
They are in the accusative case! Because the words for enemy and dragon are living masculine nouns (animate), their accusative form is identical to their genitive form, which ends in -a. If they were non-living masculine objects like a sword (mač), the accusative would just look like the nominative.
The verb napao (attacked) ends in -o. Where did the usual -l for masculine past participles go?
It turned into an -o! In Croatian, a historical -l at the very end of a syllable often changes to -o. The infinitive is napasti (to attack), and the masculine past participle was originally napal, which softened over time into napao.
Learn Junak je hrabro napao neprijatelja i ubio zmaja and more in Croatian
All course content and exercises are completely free — no paywalls, no trial periods, no signup needed.
- ✓ Practice with interactive exercises
- ✓ Track your progress with spaced repetition
- ✓Learn at your own pace — completely free