Breakdown of Boli me želudac zbog loše hrane.
ja
I
loš
bad
boljeti
to hurt
hrana
food
zbog
because of
želudac
stomach
Questions & Answers about Boli me želudac zbog loše hrane.
Why is it me instead of a possessive word like moj?
In Croatian, when expressing physical pain, the body part is the subject of the sentence and the person feeling the pain is the object. The sentence literally translates to "The stomach hurts me." That is why we use the accusative pronoun me rather than saying moj želudac (my stomach).
Why are the words loše and hrane in that specific form?
They are in the genitive case. The preposition zbog (because of) always requires the noun phrase following it to be in the genitive. The feminine nominative phrase loša hrana changes to loše hrane in the genitive.
Could I change the word order to Želudac me boli?
Yes, both are perfectly natural. However, because me is an enclitic (a short unstressed word), it strongly prefers the second position in the sentence. Whether you start with Boli or Želudac, me must tuck into that second slot.
Could I use jer instead of zbog to say "because"?
Not in this sentence. Zbog translates to "because of" and is used before a noun phrase. Jer translates to "because" and is a conjunction that must introduce a whole new clause with its own verb, such as jer sam jeo lošu hranu (because I ate bad food).
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