Breakdown of Tekućina je hladna, ali mi je moramo zagrijavati dok pokus ne počne.
biti
to be (sam, si, je)
ona
she
mi
we
ne
no, not
ali
but (strong contrast)
hladan
cold
morati
must
početi
to begin
dok
until
tekućina
liquid
zagrijavati
to heat
pokus
experiment
Questions & Answers about Tekućina je hladna, ali mi je moramo zagrijavati dok pokus ne počne.
Why is there a ne before počne? Doesn't that mean "until the experiment doesn't begin"?
In Croatian, the phrase for "until" an event happens is dok ne followed by the verb. Even though it literally looks like "until it doesn't begin", the meaning is positive. If you leave out the ne and just say dok pokus počne, it changes the meaning completely to "while the experiment begins."
There are two instances of the word je in this sentence. Are they the same word?
No, they are completely different words that just happen to look identical! The first je in Tekućina je hladna is the auxiliary verb "is" (from biti). The second je in mi je moramo is the accusative feminine pronoun meaning "it", which refers back to the feminine noun tekućina.
Why is the pronoun je placed before the verb moramo?
The pronoun je ("it") is a clitic, which is an unstressed word that must take the strict second position in its clause. After the conjunction ali, the subject pronoun mi takes the first position of the new clause. This forces the clitic je to slot in right after it, pushing the verbs moramo zagrijavati further down.
Could I use the perfective verb zagrijati instead of the imperfective zagrijavati here?
No, because heating the liquid is an ongoing, continuous process leading up to the experiment. We use the imperfective zagrijavati to show that this action takes a duration of time. In contrast, počne is perfective because the very start of the experiment is a single point in time that ends the heating phase.
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