Breakdown of Obitelj ju puno voli.
puno
a lot
voljeti
to love, to like
obitelj
family (f)
ju
her (accusative clitic)
Questions & Answers about Obitelj ju puno voli.
Why is ju placed right after obitelj instead of at the end of the sentence?
Ju (her) is a short-form pronoun, also called a clitic. In Croatian, these short, unstressed words follow a strict rule: they must sit in the "second position" of the sentence. Here, it naturally takes the second spot right after the first word, obitelj. You cannot say Obitelj puno voli ju.
I learned that the short form for "her" is je. Why does this sentence use ju?
Both ju and je are short accusative forms of ona (she). While je is the standard default, ju is also very common. Ju is strictly required when the sentence also contains the verb je (is) to avoid awkwardly saying je je, but many speakers use ju interchangeably with je in other sentences like this one, too.
Is obitelj a masculine noun because it ends in a consonant?
No, obitelj (family) is an important exception. While most nouns ending in a consonant are masculine, obitelj is actually feminine. It belongs to a special group of feminine nouns ending in a consonant that you simply need to memorize as you encounter them.
Why do we use voli (loves) instead of the plural form vole?
Even though a family is made up of multiple people, the word obitelj itself is a singular noun. Because of this, it takes the third-person singular verb voli (loves). It works exactly like American English, where we say "the family loves" rather than "the family love".
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