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Žohari nam se brzo množe u kuhinji.

Žohari nam se brzo množe u kuhinji.
The cockroaches are multiplying quickly in the kitchen on us.
From Lesson 319:The dative of detriment·Croatian

Questions & Answers about Žohari nam se brzo množe u kuhinji.

Why is the dative pronoun nam used in this sentence?
This is a great example of the Dative of detriment (often called the ethical dative). It does not mean the cockroaches are literally being given to us. Instead, it expresses that the action affects us negatively or happens to our disadvantage. In English, we often capture this feeling with the informal phrase 'on us,' as in 'The cockroaches are multiplying on us.'
Why are the words nam and se placed exactly in that order?
Both nam and se are clitics (short, unstressed words), meaning they must take the second position in the sentence, right after the first word Žohari. When stacking multiple clitics together, Croatian has a strict order: dative clitics like nam always come before the reflexive clitic se.
Why is there a se next to the verb množe?
The verb here is množiti se, which means 'to multiply' in the biological sense of breeding or increasing in number. Without se, the verb množiti just means you are actively multiplying something else (like numbers in math). Adding the reflexive se shows the cockroaches are multiplying themselves.
Why does the word for kitchen (kuhinja) change to kuhinji?
Because it follows the preposition u to show a static location (where an action is taking place), which requires the Locative case. For feminine nouns that end in -a like kuhinja, the Locative ending changes the -a to an -i, making it u kuhinji.

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