Breakdown of Oni su danas doma.
biti
to be (sam, si, je)
doma
at home / home (direction)
danas
today
oni
they
Questions & Answers about Oni su danas doma.
Why do we use Oni for "they" here? Are there other words for "they"?
Yes! In Croatian, oni is used for a group of males or a mixed group of males and females. If the group is entirely female, you would use one. If you are talking about a group of neuter nouns, you would use ona.
Is su a short or long form of the verb "to be"?
su is the short (clitic) form of the verb "to be" for "they". Because it is a short word with no accent of its own, it naturally wants to sit in the second position in the sentence, right after Oni.
If we drop the pronoun Oni, does the sentence stay exactly the same?
Not quite! Croatian often drops pronouns like oni, but because su is a clitic (a short word that needs to lean on another word), it cannot start a sentence. You would have to move another word to the front to support it, making it Danas su doma or Doma su danas.
Why does the sentence use doma for "home" instead of kuća?
kuća refers to the physical building (a house). doma is a special adverb form that means "at home". Whenever you want to say someone is located at their house, you use doma.