Breakdown of Svi gosti su se dobro najeli i napili.
biti
to be (sam, si, je)
dobro
well
i
and (additive)
gost
guest
sav
all (of a whole) / everyone, all (people) / everything
najesti se
to eat one's fill
napiti se
to drink one's fill
Questions & Answers about Svi gosti su se dobro najeli i napili.
How do najeli and napili give the meaning of "eating and drinking to one's fill"?
This is a special feature of Croatian verbs. If you take the basic verbs jesti (to eat) and piti (to drink), and add the prefix na- along with the reflexive pronoun se, it changes the meaning to doing the action until you are completely saturated or satisfied. So, najesti se means "to eat your fill" and napiti se means "to drink your fill."
Why is there only one se if both najesti se and napiti se are reflexive verbs?
When you have two reflexive verbs connected by i (and) that share the same subject, you do not need to repeat the reflexive pronoun. The single se in this sentence naturally applies to both najeli and napili.
Why are su and se placed before dobro najeli instead of right next to the verbs?
Both su and se are enclitics (unstressed words that must take the second position in a sentence). Here, the noun phrase Svi gosti (All the guests) acts as the first position. The enclitics must immediately follow it, keeping their strict order where the verbal enclitic (su) always comes before the reflexive pronoun (se).
Does napiti se always mean just "drinking your fill" of any liquid?
Grammatically yes, but you should be careful with it in conversation! While in this specific sentence (paired with eating) it simply means the guests had plenty to drink, napiti se is also the standard colloquial way to say "to get drunk" in Croatian.
Learn Svi gosti su se dobro najeli i napili 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