Bilo bi dobro da se zajedno spremamo za ispit.

to be

Breakdown of Bilo bi dobro da se zajedno spremamo za ispit.

• dobar: good
• zajedno: together
• za: for

Questions & Answers about Bilo bi dobro da se zajedno spremamo za ispit.

What does Bilo bi dobro literally mean, and what kind of construction is it?

Bilo bi dobro literally means “It would be good”.

Grammatically:

• bilo – past participle of biti (to be), neuter singular
• bi – conditional auxiliary (used with all persons to form the conditional)
• dobro – predicate adjective/adverb (good)

This is the conditional of the verb biti used in an impersonal, evaluative way. There is no real “it” in Croatian; English adds a dummy subject “it”, but Croatian just uses the neuter form bilo.

Why is bilo in the neuter form and not masculine or feminine?

Croatian often uses neuter singular for impersonal statements of evaluation, where English uses “it” as a dummy subject.

Examples:

• Bilo je vruće. – It was hot.
• Bilo bi super. – It would be great.
• Bilo bi dobro. – It would be good.

There is no specific noun being talked about, so nothing to agree with in gender. Neuter singular functions a bit like English “it” in such sentences.

Why is it Bilo bi dobro, not Bi bilo dobro?

Because of the clitic (enclitic) word order rule in Croatian.