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Questions & Answers about Plemići gledahu portret.
How can I recognize that gledahu is the imperfect tense here?
Look at the ending! The suffix -ahu is a classic marker of the 3rd-person plural imperfect for many verbs (like gledati -> gledahu). Since you are only learning to recognize this tense, just remember that verbs ending in -ahu usually translate to "they were [doing something]" in older texts or literature.
How would a modern speaker say this sentence in everyday conversation?
They would use the standard past tense (perfekt) and say Plemići su gledali portret. The imperfect tense (gledahu) is highly literary and archaic; you will almost never hear it spoken on the street today, which is why you generally only need to recognize it when reading.
Why isn't the direct object portret changed to portreta?
Because portret is a masculine inanimate noun (a non-living thing). For inanimate masculine nouns, the accusative case (used for direct objects) looks exactly identical to the nominative case. If they were looking at a living person, like a president (predsjednik), it would take the animate -a ending (gledahu predsjednika).
What is the singular form of Plemići, and does it trigger a sound change?