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Questions & Answers about Oni idu kući.
What does Oni mean, and is it necessary in this sentence?
Oni is the third-person plural pronoun meaning they (specifically for an all-male or mixed-gender group). In Croatian, subject pronouns are often omitted because the verb ending on idu already tells you the subject is “they.” So both Oni idu kući and simply Idu kući mean “They are going home,” with the latter being more common in everyday speech.
What is idu, and which person and tense does it represent?
Idu is the present tense, third-person plural form of the verb ići (to go). The full present-tense paradigm of ići is:
- ja idem (I go)
- ti ideš (you go)
- on/ona/ono ide (he/she/it goes)
- mi idemo (we go)
- vi idete (you pl go)
- oni/one idu (they go)
Why is it kući and not kuća?
Kuća is the nominative form meaning house. Kući is a special, frozen form of kuća that functions as a directional adverb meaning home (as in “toward home”). It’s historically the locative or dative of kuća, but you don’t use a preposition with it—just kući by itself.
Why isn’t there a preposition before kući, and how is it different from u kuću?