Breakdown of Djeca vole svoju učiteljicu i svoju školu.
Questions & Answers about Djeca vole svoju učiteljicu i svoju školu.
Croatian uses the reflexive possessive adjective svoj when the possessor is the sentence’s subject (of any person: I/you/he/they). Here, the subject is Djeca (the children), so you say svoju to mean “their own.”
Using njihovu is possible but usually implies the possessor is some third party (not the subject) or at least makes that a possibility. So:
- Djeca vole svoju učiteljicu… = The children like/love their own teacher.
- Djeca vole njihovu učiteljicu… = Could mean “the children like that other group’s teacher.”
- svoju is the feminine accusative singular form of svoj.
- It agrees with the possessed noun in gender, number, and case—not with the owner.
So it’s feminine singular accusative because it modifies učiteljicu and školu, both feminine singular direct objects.
Quick patterns in the accusative (just to orient yourself):
- Masculine animate: svog/svoga učitelja
- Masculine inanimate: svoj stol
- Feminine: svoju školu
- Neuter: svoje dijete
- Plural (all genders): svoje škole/knjige/učitelje
They are in the accusative singular because they’re direct objects of voljeti (to love/like).
- učiteljica → accusative: učiteljicu (note the common -ica → -icu change)
- škola → accusative: školu (regular feminine -a → -u pattern)
Djeca (“children”) is a plural-only noun (the singular is dijete, “child”). Verbs agree in number, so you need the third-person plural: vole.
Compare:
- Dijete voli… (A child likes/loves…)
- Djeca vole… (Children like/love…)
No, repetition is optional when the same possessive applies to both coordinated nouns, especially when they match in gender/number:
- Acceptable: Djeca vole svoju učiteljicu i školu.
- Clearer (and very common): Djeca vole svoju učiteljicu i svoju školu.
Repetition is recommended if the two nouns have different genders or if there’s any chance of ambiguity.
Yes, if the context makes ownership obvious:
- Djeca vole učiteljicu i školu. This can mean “the (their) teacher and (their) school,” but it’s more general/less explicit. Croatian often drops possessives when context suffices.
You’d use the masculine animate forms:
- Djeca vole svog/svoga učitelja i svoju školu. Notes:
- Masculine animate accusative uses the same form as the genitive: (svog/svoga) učitelja.
- svog (short) and svoga (full) are both correct.
Make both objects plural and use the plural possessive:
- Djeca vole svoje učiteljice i svoje škole. Here svoje is the plural form, and both nouns are accusative plural.
Both are possible but differ in structure and nuance:
- voljeti = to love/be fond of (often stronger, but also used for “like” in everyday speech). Takes a direct object in the accusative:
- Djeca vole svoju učiteljicu i svoju školu.
- sviđati se = to please/to be liked (literally “X pleases Y”). The liked thing is the grammatical subject; the “liker” is in the dative:
- Singular subject: Djeci se sviđa njihova škola.
- Plural subject: Djeci se sviđaju njihova učiteljica i njihova škola.
Because svoj must refer to the grammatical subject. In sentences with sviđati se, the subject is the thing that pleases (e.g., učiteljica/škola), not djeca.
- Wrong (misleading): Djeci se sviđa svoja učiteljica. (This would suggest the teacher is the possessor of herself.)
- Right: Djeci se sviđa njihova učiteljica.
Key sounds:
- j = y in “yes”
- dj = dy (say D + Y quickly), so Djeca ≈ “DYE-tsa”
- lj = ly (like the “lli” in “million”), as in uči-te-lji-cu
- č = ch in “church” (harder than English “ch”)
- š = sh in “ship”
- c = ts in “cats”
Whole words (roughly):
- Djeca: DYE-tsa
- učiteljicu: oo-chee-TEH-lyi-tsee-tsoo
- školu: SHKO-loo
Yes. Croatian word order is flexible for emphasis:
- Fronting the objects: Svoju učiteljicu i svoju školu djeca vole. (focus on what they like)
- Emphasizing “both”: Djeca vole i svoju učiteljicu i svoju školu. (both the teacher and the school)