Breakdown of Hrastovi rastu polako, ovom hrastu je tristo godina.
biti
to be (sam, si, je)
ovaj
this (m) / ova (f), ovo (n)
godina
year
polako
slowly
rasti
to rise / to grow
tristo
three hundred
hrast
oak
Questions & Answers about Hrastovi rastu polako, ovom hrastu je tristo godina.
Why is "this oak" in the dative case (ovom hrastu)?
This sentence uses the Croatian "dative experiencer" construction to express age, which is the standard way to do it. Instead of saying the oak has years or is a certain number of years old, Croatian literally says "to this oak is three hundred years." That's why the nominative ovaj hrast changes to the dative ovom hrastu.
Why do we use the singular verb je (is) when talking about 300 years?
In this age construction, when the number is five or more (like tristo), the phrase is treated as an impersonal quantity. Because it's impersonal, the verb defaults to the neutral, third-person singular je. You only use plural forms of the verb when the age ends in 2, 3, or 4 (except 12, 13, and 14).
Why is the word for years godina here? Isn't that the singular form?
It looks exactly like the nominative singular, but here godina is actually the genitive plural. In Croatian, numbers five and up (including tristo) require the noun following them to be in the genitive plural. The genitive plural of godina just happens to be spelled exactly the same as the singular godina (though the final 'a' is pronounced slightly longer).
Why does hrast (oak) become hrastovi in the plural? Where did the -ov- come from?
Hrast is a one-syllable masculine noun. As a quick refresher, most one-syllable masculine nouns in Croatian require an extra piece—the infix -ov- (or -ev- after soft consonants)—inserted before the plural ending -i. That is why hrast becomes hrastovi instead of just "hrasti".
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