Breakdown of Kako god bušiš, otpor stijene je snažan.
biti
to be (sam, si, je)
snažan
powerful
stijena
rock
kako god
however
bušiti
to drill
otpor
resistance
Questions & Answers about Kako god bušiš, otpor stijene je snažan.
How does kako god work with the indicative verb bušiš in this sentence?
Kako god means "no matter how" or "however". In this sentence, it's paired with the present indicative verb bušiš (you drill) to describe a factual, ongoing reality. If you used the conditional instead (kako god bi bušio), it would sound more hypothetical ("no matter how you might drill"), but the indicative emphasizes that this is an actual, ongoing physical struggle with the rock.
Why is the imperfective verb bušiš used here rather than a perfective verb?
The imperfective aspect emphasizes the continuous or repeated nature of the action. When paired with kako god, it highlights that the continuous process of trying to drill—perhaps trying different angles or methods over a period of time—is constantly being met with resistance.
Why is the word for rock, stijene, in the genitive case?
Here, stijene is a possessive or descriptive genitive modifying the noun directly before it, otpor (resistance). It literally translates to "the resistance of the rock". In Croatian, putting the second noun in the genitive case is the standard way to link two nouns together in this way.
Why do we use the indefinite adjective snažan instead of the definite form snažni?
Snažan is a predicate adjective here, meaning it comes after the verb je (is) to describe the subject (otpor). As a rule in Croatian, when masculine adjectives are used in the predicate to describe what something "is", they almost always take the short, indefinite form (dropping the final -i).
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