Breakdown of Kava je gorka, ali ju uvijek pijem.
biti
to be (sam, si, je)
ali
but (strong contrast)
kava
coffee
uvijek
always
Questions & Answers about Kava je gorka, ali ju uvijek pijem.
The dictionary says "bitter" is gorak. Why is it gorka here instead of goraka?
This is the "fleeting 'a'" (nepostojano a) in action! Many adjectives that end in a consonant in their masculine dictionary form have an 'a' inserted just to make them easier to say. When you add an ending (like the feminine -a to match the feminine noun kava), that extra 'a' drops out. So, gorak becomes gorka.
Why is the word for "it" ju in this sentence?
In English, "it" is genderless, but in Croatian, pronouns must match the gender of the noun they replace. Since it replaces kava (a feminine noun), we need the feminine accusative pronoun for "her/it". Ju is one of the short (clitic) forms for this pronoun.
Could I use je instead of ju here, since both mean "her/it"?
Yes, you could say ali je uvijek pijem. Both ju and je are correct short-form feminine accusative pronouns. However, Croatians often choose ju if the word je (meaning "is") already appears in the sentence. Even though they are in different clauses here, using ju creates a nice variation and completely avoids any chance of a "je je" sound clash.