Questions & Answers about Je li kava skupa?
How exactly does je li turn this into a question?
Je li is the standard way to ask a yes/no question in Croatian. It is made up of je (is) and the question word li. You put it at the very beginning of the sentence, so the statement kava je skupa (the coffee is expensive) becomes je li kava skupa? (is the coffee expensive?).
Why does the word for expensive end in "a" (skupa)?
Adjectives have to match the gender of the noun they describe. Because kava (coffee) is a feminine noun, the adjective takes the feminine ending -a, becoming skupa. If you were talking about a masculine noun like čaj (tea), you would use the masculine form skup.
Can I just say Kava je skupa? with a rising voice, like in English?
Yes, in casual spoken Croatian, you can often just use a statement's word order and raise your voice at the end to ask a question. However, using je li is the proper grammatical way to do it and is very common in both speech and writing.
I see the English translation says "the coffee", but where is the word for "the"?
Croatian doesn't have words for "the" or "a" (articles). The word kava can mean "coffee", "a coffee", or "the coffee" depending on the context.