Word
Idemo li na autocestu ili se vozimo bilo kamo?
Meaning
Are we going onto the highway or driving just anywhere?
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Breakdown of Idemo li na autocestu ili se vozimo bilo kamo?
li
question particle
na
on, at / to, onto (with motion) / about (thinking about)
ići
to go
ili
or
Questions & Answers about Idemo li na autocestu ili se vozimo bilo kamo?
Why is it bilo kamo and not bilo gdje?
Both can translate to anywhere in English, but Croatian makes a strict distinction between location and destination. Since we are asking about the destination of our drive (motion towards), we use kamo (where to). Therefore, just anywhere (to) is bilo kamo. If we were asking where something is currently located, we would use bilo gdje.
Why is it se vozimo and not just vozimo?
The verb voziti without se means to physically drive or transport a specific object, like driving a car (voziti auto). When you add se, voziti se means to ride in a vehicle or to be traveling along. Since the focus here is on us traveling rather than the physical act of operating the vehicle, we use se vozimo.
Why is autocestu in the accusative case here instead of the locative?
The preposition na takes the accusative case when it indicates motion toward a destination. Since we are asking if we are going onto the highway (motion), we use the accusative autocestu. If we were already driving on the highway (location), we would use the locative case: na autocesti.
Could we use da li at the beginning instead of idemo li?