Questions & Answers about Tepih je mokar poslije kiše.
Je is the 3rd person singular present form of biti (to be).
Literal structure:
- Tepih – the carpet (subject, nominative singular)
- je – is (3rd person singular of biti)
- mokar – wet (adjective describing the subject)
In standard Croatian you cannot omit je in a full sentence like this.
So:
- ✅ Tepih je mokar. – The carpet is wet.
- ❌ Tepih mokar. – Not a normal full sentence in standard Croatian (could appear as a fragment, headline, etc.).
You can omit je only in certain short answers or very specific contexts, for example:
- Je li tepih mokar? – Is the carpet wet?
- Je. / Da, mokar je. – Yes (it is).
Adjectives in Croatian must agree with the noun in:
- gender (masculine / feminine / neuter)
- number (singular / plural)
- case (here: nominative, because it describes the subject)
Tepih is a masculine singular noun in nominative.
So the adjective must be masculine singular nominative:
- mokar – masculine singular (for tepih)
- mokra – feminine singular (for nouns like stolica – chair)
- mokro – neuter singular (for nouns like more – sea)
Examples:
- Tepih je mokar. – The carpet is wet. (masculine)
- Stolica je mokra. – The chair is wet. (feminine)
- More je mokro. – The sea is wet. (neuter)
The preposition poslije (after) requires the genitive case.
- kiša is the base form (nominative singular) = rain
- kiše is genitive singular (of singular kiša) and also nominative plural, but here we are using it as genitive singular.
Structure:
- poslije
- genitive singular → poslije kiše = after (the) rain
So:
- kiša (NOM sg) → used as the subject:
- Kiša pada. – It’s raining. / The rain is falling.
- kiše (GEN sg) → after, during, because of, etc.:
- poslije kiše – after the rain
- tijekom kiše – during the rain
You don’t say poslije kiša if you just mean after the rain (in general).
Poslije kiša (genitive plural) would mean after rains (multiple separate rains), which is a more specific or unusual idea.
Yes, you can. Both are natural:
- Tepih je mokar poslije kiše.
- Tepih je mokar nakon kiše.
In everyday speech, poslije and nakon are very close in meaning and often interchangeable: after.
Nuances (not strict rules):
- nakon can sound a bit more neutral or slightly more formal/written.
- poslije is very common in everyday speech.
For a learner, you can treat them as synonyms here. Both require the genitive, so you still say kiše, not kiša.
Poslije and posle both mean after, but:
- poslije – standard in Croatian
- posle – standard in Serbian, and also heard in some Croatian dialects
Since you’re learning Croatian, you should prefer:
- poslije kiše
or - nakon kiše
You will still easily understand posle kiše in Serbian or in some regional speech.
Croatian word order is relatively flexible. These are all grammatically correct:
- Tepih je mokar poslije kiše.
- Poslije kiše je tepih mokar.
- Poslije kiše tepih je mokar.
- Tepih je poslije kiše mokar.
Differences are mostly about emphasis / information structure:
- (1) is neutral: simple statement.
- (2) and (3) put more focus on poslije kiše (after the rain).
- (4) can sound like you’re contrasting with some other time (e.g. Before, it was dry, but *after the rain it is wet*).
For typical neutral usage, Tepih je mokar poslije kiše. is a very natural pattern.
Croatian has no articles (the, a/an) like English.
- Tepih je mokar. can mean:
- The carpet is wet.
- A carpet is wet.
depending on context.
The definiteness (whether it’s a or the) is understood from the situation or from what was mentioned earlier, not from a separate word.
Here, context would usually make it the carpet is wet after the rain.
Both mokar and vlažan relate to moisture, but they’re used a bit differently:
mokar – wet, soaked, clearly wet
- Tepih je mokar. – The carpet is (properly) wet.
- Mokre cipele. – wet shoes.
vlažan – moist, damp, slightly wet
- Vlažan zrak. – humid air.
- Vlažan zid. – a damp wall.
- Vlažan tepih. – a damp carpet (not necessarily soaking, just not dry).
In this sentence, mokar is perfectly natural if the carpet is clearly wet from the rain. If you wanted to emphasise it’s just a little damp, you could say Tepih je vlažan poslije kiše.
You need plural for both the noun and the adjective, and su for the verb:
- Tepisi su mokri poslije kiše.
Breakdown:
- tepisi – carpets (nominative plural of tepih)
- su – are (3rd person plural of biti)
- mokri – wet (masculine plural form of mokar)
- poslije kiše – after the rain (same as in the singular sentence)
So:
- Tepih je mokar poslije kiše. – The carpet is wet after the rain.
- Tepisi su mokri poslije kiše. – The carpets are wet after the rain.
For past and future, you change the verb biti (to be):
Past (was):
- Tepih je bio mokar poslije kiše. – The carpet was wet after the rain.
Future (will be):
- Tepih će biti mokar poslije kiše. – The carpet will be wet after the rain.
Notes:
- bio is the masculine singular past form of biti (because tepih is masculine).
- će biti is the future (literally will be).
Approximate pronunciation using English-like spelling:
tepih – TEH-pih
- te like te in ten
- pih like p
- ih (short i as in bit)
mokar – MOH-kar
- mo like mo in mop
- kar like car with a rolled/flapped *r
poslije – POS-lye
- pos like pos in possible
- lje pronounced roughly lye, one syllable with an l plus j sound
kiše – KEE-sheh
- ki like kee in keep
- š is like English sh
- e like e in met
Stress is usually on the first syllable in each of these words for a base learner’s approximation.
Yes.
- Tepih je mokar. – The carpet is wet.
- Tepih je mokar poslije kiše. – The carpet is wet after the rain.
The shorter sentence is perfectly correct; it just doesn’t specify why / when it’s wet.
Adding poslije kiše gives the extra information that the wetness is a result of the rain.