Breakdown of Ja nisam umoran, samo želim spavati.
biti
to be (sam, si, je)
ja
I
umoran
tired
spavati
to sleep
željeti
to want
samo
only
Questions & Answers about Ja nisam umoran, samo želim spavati.
How does the verb željeti become želim here?
The verb for to want is željeti. Like many verbs ending in -jeti, it drops the -je- part and uses the regular -i- endings for the present tense. To say I want, you take the base žel- and add -im to get želim.
How do we know the person speaking is a man?
The adjective for tired here is umoran, which is the masculine form. If a woman were speaking, she would use the feminine ending and say Ja nisam umorna.
Why is the word spavati left in its dictionary form?
When you connect two verbs like want to sleep, the first verb (želim) changes to match who is doing it, but the second verb (spavati) stays in its dictionary form (the infinitive). This works very similarly to English!
Could I leave out the word Ja at the start?
Yes! In Croatian, the pronoun Ja is optional because the negative verb nisam already tells us that it means I am not. Saying Ja nisam umoran just adds a little extra emphasis on the I compared to simply saying Nisam umoran.
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