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Questions & Answers about Mogu li razgovarati s gospođom Perić?
Why isn't the surname Perić declined to match gospođom?
In Croatian, female surnames that end in a consonant (like Perić) do not change their endings for different grammatical cases. Only the title (gospođom) takes the instrumental case ending. If you were asking to speak with a man, both the title and the surname would change (for example, s gospodinom Perićem).
Why do we use the short preposition s instead of sa here?
The preposition meaning 'with' is normally just s. You only add the 'a' to make it sa when the following word starts with a sound that makes it hard to pronounce together, such as s, z, š, or ž. Since gospođom starts with a 'g', the short form s is used.
Why does the word for Mrs. (gospođa) change to gospođom?
The preposition s (with) always requires the instrumental case when it describes doing an activity accompanied by someone. The base word gospođa changes its '-a' ending to '-om' to form the instrumental case.