Breakdown of Kovač želi kovati željezo na nakovnju.
željeti
to want
na
on, at / to, onto (with motion) / about (thinking about)
kovač
blacksmith
kovati
to forge
Questions & Answers about Kovač želi kovati željezo na nakovnju.
The word for anvil is nakovanj. Why does it become nakovnju here instead of nakovanju?
Nakovanj has a "fleeting a" (nepostojano a). When adding case endings, this a disappears. Since it follows na (meaning "on" a location), it takes the locative ending -u, giving us nakovnju. This dropping of the a is exactly what happens alongside the l-vocalization reversal in this lesson's main topic (like posao dropping its a to become posla).
I see kovač (blacksmith), kovati (to forge), and nakovnju (anvil). Are they all related?
Yes! They all share the same root. Kovati is the verb "to forge" or "to hammer". A kovač is the person who does it, and a nakovanj (na + the root of kovati) is the surface "on" which the forging happens. Recognizing these root families makes learning Croatian vocabulary much easier.
Why is the direct object željezo not changed to an accusative form like željezu or željeza?
Željezo (iron) is a neuter noun. In Croatian, the accusative case (which we use for the direct object of kovati) for all neuter nouns is exactly the same as their nominative case. Therefore, the word željezo doesn't appear to change form here.