Breakdown of Njena mačka spava na balkonu kad je sunce jako.
Questions & Answers about Njena mačka spava na balkonu kad je sunce jako.
Njena is a possessive adjective meaning her (as in her cat).
- It comes from the pronoun ona (she).
- It must agree with the noun it describes in:
- gender → mačka is feminine
- number → mačka is singular
- case → here mačka is in the nominative (it’s the subject)
So you get njena mačka = her cat (feminine, singular, nominative).
Yes, you can also say Njezina mačka spava na balkonu kad je sunce jako.
- njena / njen and njezina / njezin are two sets of forms for her (possessive).
- In many descriptions of standard Croatian, njezina is the “more correct / textbook” form, and njena is very common in everyday speech.
- In practice, you will hear and read both, and everyone will understand both.
As a learner of Croatian, it’s safe to use njezina if you want to stick closely to the textbook standard, but you will constantly hear njena as well.
Grammatically, mačka is a feminine noun (ending in -a, like many feminine nouns), so:
- mačka (f.) = cat (often, but not necessarily, a female cat)
- mačak (m.) = tomcat, a male cat
In this sentence:
- mačka is just “the cat”, and the grammar is feminine because the word itself is feminine.
- If the speaker wants to stress that it’s a male cat, they might say Njezin mačak spava na balkonu… (Her tomcat sleeps on the balcony…).
So not every actual cat is feminine; only the noun mačka is grammatically feminine.
The basic dictionary form is balkon (balcony), but:
- na
- location (where something is) → locative case
- The locative singular of balkon is balkonu.
So:
- na balkonu = on the balcony (position, no movement)
- na balkon = onto the balcony (direction / movement, accusative case)
In this sentence the cat is simply lying there (location), not moving onto it, so we use na balkonu.
With na, Croatian distinguishes:
Position (where?) → locative
- Mačka spava na balkonu. = The cat sleeps on the balcony.
- Knjiga je na stolu. = The book is on the table.
Direction (where to?) → accusative
- Mačka trči na balkon. = The cat runs onto the balcony.
- Stavljam knjigu na stol. = I put the book onto the table.
Ask yourself: is there movement toward a place (use accusative), or is something simply located there (use locative)?
Masculine nouns like balkon often take -u in the dative and locative singular:
- nominative: balkon (subject form)
- dative / locative: balkonu
Because na (on) with a static location requires the locative, we use balkonu:
- na balkonu = on the balcony
You see the same pattern in: - u Zagrebu (in Zagreb)
- na stolu (on the table) → from stol
Croatian has no articles like English a/an or the.
- Njena mačka can mean her cat or her (the) cat, depending on context.
- na balkonu is translated as on the balcony, but there is no separate word for the in Croatian.
Definiteness (whether you mean the or a) is usually clear from context, pronouns, or sometimes from word order, not from a separate article word.
spava is the present tense, 3rd person singular of spavati (to sleep):
- (ona) spava = she sleeps / she is sleeping
Croatian has just one present tense form here; it covers both English:
- The cat sleeps on the balcony.
- The cat is sleeping on the balcony.
There is no auxiliary does or is in front of the main verb.
So Njena mačka spava… can mean either Her cat sleeps… (habitual) or Her cat is sleeping… (right now), depending on context.
kad and kada both mean when.
- kada is the full form.
- kad is a shorter form, very common in everyday speech.
In most cases they are interchangeable:
- Njena mačka spava na balkonu kad je sunce jako.
- Njena mačka spava na balkonu kada je sunce jako.
Both are correct and mean the same. You may see kada more in formal writing and kad more in casual speech.
The key is the little verb je (is). In Croatian, je is a clitic (an unstressed short word) that normally wants to be in second position in the clause.
In the clause:
- kad je sunce jako (when the sun is strong)
we have:
- kad – first word (conjunction)
- je – second word (clitic “is”)
- sunce – subject
- jako – adjective
You would not normally say kad sunce je jako, because then je would be in third position. The grammar of Croatian strongly prefers:
- Sunce je jako. (The sun is strong.)
- Kad je sunce jako, njena mačka spava… (When the sun is strong, her cat sleeps…)
So the position of je is the main reason for this word order.
Here jako is the neuter singular form of the adjective jak (strong), agreeing with sunce (which is neuter):
- sunce je jako = the sun is strong
Natural English translations might be:
- when the sun is strong
- when the sun is very strong
- or more idiomatically: when it’s very sunny / when the sun is really intense
Important points:
- As an adjective, jak has forms: jak (m), jaka (f), jako (n), etc.
- There is also an adverb jako meaning very / strongly, as in jako dobar (very good).
In sunce je jako, the simplest grammatical view is: adjective jak in its neuter form jako, agreeing with sunce.
Because sunce (sun) is a neuter noun, and adjectives must agree with the noun in gender, number, and case.
- Masculine: jak pas → Pas je jak. (The dog is strong.)
- Feminine: jaka kava → Kava je jaka. (The coffee is strong.)
- Neuter: jako sunce → Sunce je jako. (The sun is strong.)
So with sunce, you must use the neuter form jako, not the masculine jak.
Yes, you can put the when-clause first:
- Kad je sunce jako, njena mačka spava na balkonu.
This is very natural. About the comma:
- When the kad-clause comes first, you normally use a comma after it.
- When the kad-clause comes after the main clause, the comma is often omitted in short, everyday sentences, as in the original:
- Njena mačka spava na balkonu kad je sunce jako.
So both orders are fine; just remember the comma if you put the kad-clause at the beginning.