Breakdown of Sijedi gospodin čita novine.
gospodin
gentleman
čitati
to read
novine
newspaper
sijed
grey-haired
Questions & Answers about Sijedi gospodin čita novine.
Why does the word for newspaper, novine, look like a plural word here?
Because it is! Novine is a feminine plural word that translates to the singular English word newspaper. It belongs to a group of words that only exist in the plural (like scissors or clothes in English). Even though it is the direct object here (accusative case), the feminine plural accusative form is exactly the same as the nominative: novine.
Why does the adjective sijedi end in -i instead of just being sijed?
Adding the -i to the end of a masculine adjective makes it definite. This is how Croatian shows you mean a specific person, acting like the English word the. Sijed gospodin means a grey-haired gentleman, while sijedi gospodin means the grey-haired gentleman.
Could we use the perfective verb pročita instead of čita for this sentence?
No, because the English translation says he is reading the newspaper right now. Čita is an imperfective verb, used for ongoing or repeated actions. The perfective verb pročita would mean he reads it completely from start to finish, which does not fit an ongoing, present-tense action.
How would the word gospodin change if we were talking about multiple grey-haired gentlemen?
The plural of gospodin is gospoda, which is a special collective noun that grammatically acts like a feminine singular word. To say the grey-haired gentlemen are reading, you would say Sijeda gospoda čitaju novine. The adjective sijeda takes a feminine singular ending to match the collective noun, but the verb čitaju remains in the plural!
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