Questions & Answers about Želimo kolač i čaj, molim.
Why don't kolač and čaj have a special accusative ending if they are the objects we want?
They actually are in the accusative case! The rule in Croatian is that masculine nouns for non-living things (inanimate nouns), like kolač (cake) and čaj (tea), look exactly the same in the accusative case as they do in their basic dictionary form. They only get a new ending if they represent living things (like animals or people).
How do we know the sentence means 'we want' if there is no word for 'we' in the sentence?
The verb želimo (we want) ends in -mo, which specifically indicates that the subject is 'we'. Because this ending makes the subject obvious, Croatians usually leave out the pronoun mi (we).
Since the sentence says 'we want' (želimo), shouldn't 'please' also be in the 'we' form (molimo)?
You could say molimo (we ask), but molim (literally 'I ask') is used as a fixed, everyday word for 'please'. It is perfectly natural to use this fixed word molim even when you are ordering as a group.
There is no word for 'a' in the Croatian sentence. How do we know it means 'a cake' and 'a tea'?
Croatian does not use articles like 'a', 'an', or 'the'. Depending on the context, kolač can mean 'cake', 'a cake', or 'the cake'. Here, because you are ordering items in a café, translating it as 'a cake and a tea' makes the most sense in English.