Learn Hardcore Croatian: Da sam pazila na svaki savjet, možda bih napravila manje pogrešaka. - If I had paid attention to every piece of advice, I might have made fewer mistakes.

In English I would say “If I had paid attention…”, but here the sentence starts with “Da sam pazila…”. Why is “da” used instead of “ako” or something meaning “if”?

Croatian often uses “da” to introduce unreal / hypothetical conditions, especially in the past.

“Da sam pazila na svaki savjet …”
= If I had paid attention to every piece of advice … (but I didn’t)
“Ako” is usually for real or possible conditions:
- “Ako pazim na svaki savjet, napravit ću manje pogrešaka.”
  = If I pay attention to every piece of advice, I will make fewer mistakes. (this is a realistic future result)

So:

“da + past form” → often if in hypothetical situations
“ako + present/future” → often if in real or likely situations

In this sentence, the speaker is imagining a counterfactual past, so “da” fits better than “ako”.

What tense is “da sam pazila” and what tense is “bih napravila”? How does this compare to English conditionals?

Structurally, Croatian grammars usually talk about:

“sam pazila”
- Auxiliary “sam” (I am) + past participle “pazila”
- This is the perfect tense (past) of “paziti”: I paid attention / I was careful.
“bih napravila”
- Auxiliary “bih” (conditional of biti, “to be”) + past participle “napravila”
- This is the conditional (often called conditional II in traditional grammar when used with a past in the “if”-clause).

Together:

“Da sam pazila … možda bih napravila …”
corresponds closely to English third conditional:
If I had paid attention, (maybe) I would have made fewer mistakes.

So you can map it roughly as:

da + perfect ⇒ if + past perfect
bih + past participle ⇒ would have + past participle

Why is it “sam pazila” and not “pazila sam” after “da”? Does word order matter here?

Both “da sam pazila” and “da pazila sam” are possible in theory, but “da pazila sam” is very unusual and sounds wrong in modern, natural speech.

Reason: Croatian clitics (short unstressed words like sam, si, je, bih, ga, se…) have relatively fixed positions in the clause:

They tend to come in second position in their clause.

In “Da sam pazila na svaki savjet …”:

“Da” is first.
The clitic “sam” naturally comes right after “da”.
Then comes the main verb “pazila”.

So:

Correct / natural: Da sam pazila …
Wrong / unnatural: Da pazila sam …

This is why you’ll usually see “da sam + participle”, not the other way around.

Why does the verb end in -la: pazila, napravila? What does that say about the subject?

The ending -la shows:

singular
feminine
past/participial form

So:

“pazila sam” = I (female) paid attention / was careful
“napravila bih” = I (female) would have made

If a man were speaking, he would say:

“Da sam pazio na svaki savjet, možda bih napravio manje pogrešaka.”
- pazio (masc. sg.)
- napravio (masc. sg.)

So the past participle agrees in gender and number with the subject:

žena → pazila, napravila
muškarac → pazio, napravio

What does “paziti na savjet” literally mean? Why not just use a verb that means “listen to advice”?

The verb “paziti (na)” literally means:

to pay attention (to), to be careful (about).

So “paziti na svaki savjet” is more like:

to pay attention to every piece of advice
to be careful and take note of every piece of advice

It implies not just hearing the advice, but actively noticing it and treating it carefully.

If you wanted “listen to” more literally, you could say:

“slušati svaki savjet” = to listen to every piece of advice
But:
“paziti na svaki savjet” sounds like: take every piece of advice seriously / be careful to consider every piece of advice.

So it’s a slightly different nuance: more about carefulness and attention, not just hearing.

Why is it “na svaki savjet” and not something like “svakom savjetu”? What case is used here?

The preposition “na” can take either accusative or locative, depending on meaning.

With “paziti na + accusative”, it means:

to pay attention to, to watch out for

Here we have:

“na svaki savjet”
- svaki = every (accusative masculine singular)
- savjet = advice (accusative masculine singular)

So:

“paziti na + accusative” = pay attention to …

If you used dative, “svakom savjetu”, you’d need a different verb (like vjerovati nečijem savjetu = to believe someone’s advice). With “paziti na”, accusative is the standard pattern:

paziti na promet (traffic)
paziti na dijete (child)
paziti na svaki savjet (every piece of advice)

What is the function of “možda” here? Could we remove it, and would the sentence still be correct?

“Možda” means “maybe / perhaps”.

In “možda bih napravila manje pogrešaka”:

It softens the statement:
- maybe I would have made fewer mistakes
  instead of the stronger:
- I would have made fewer mistakes.

If you remove “možda”:

“Da sam pazila na svaki savjet, bih napravila manje pogrešaka.” → This is wrong because of word order: clitic “bih” must be in the second position.
You need:
“Da sam pazila na svaki savjet, napravila bih manje pogrešaka.”

So you can either say:

“Možda bih napravila manje pogrešaka.”
“Napravila bih manje pogrešaka.”

Both are grammatically fine; “možda” just adds uncertainty / modesty to the claim.

Why is it “napravila manje pogrešaka” and not “manje pogreške”? What case is “pogrešaka”?

“Pogrešaka” is genitive plural of “pogreška” (mistake).

In Croatian, after certain quantifiers like mnogo, malo, nekoliko, više, manje…, you normally use genitive plural:

mnogo pogrešaka = many mistakes
malo pogrešaka = few mistakes
nekoliko pogrešaka = several mistakes
više pogrešaka = more mistakes
manje pogrešaka = fewer mistakes

That’s why:

“manje pogrešaka” (GEN. PL.) is correct, not “manje pogreške” (which would be nominative/accusative plural and sounds wrong here).

So the structure is:

manje (less/fewer) + genitive plural noun

I’ve seen both “pogrešaka” and “pogreški” as plural forms. Is “manje pogreški” also possible?

The noun “pogreška” has two genitive plural forms in practice:

pogrešaka – the more common and neutral standard form
pogrešaka / pogreški – both are recorded, but “pogrešaka” is more widely used and sounds more standard and natural in most contexts.

In this specific phrase:

“manje pogrešaka” is definitely standard and natural.
“manje pogreški” can be heard, but it may sound:
- dialectal, or
- somewhat less standard, depending on the speaker/region.

For learners, it’s best to stick with:

“manje pogrešaka”.

Can I change the word order around “možda” and “bih napravila”? For example, is “Bih možda napravila manje pogrešaka” correct?

You have to be careful with clitics like “bih”.

Correct and natural options:

“Možda bih napravila manje pogrešaka.”
“Napravila bih možda manje pogrešaka.” (more marked/emphatic, but possible)
“Možda bih manje pogrešaka napravila.” (also possible, more focused on “fewer mistakes”)

Incorrect / unnatural:

“Bih možda napravila manje pogrešaka.”

Why? Because “bih” is a clitic and normally cannot stand at the start of an independent sentence. It should appear in second position in its clause, after the first stressed element (here often “možda” or the subject).

So:

Start the sentence with “Možda” or with the subject/verb, then place “bih” right after that.

Could I say “Ako sam pazila na svaki savjet, možda bih napravila manje pogrešaka” instead of “Da sam pazila …”?

“Ako sam pazila …” sounds odd in this sentence, because:

“Ako + past” normally suggests a real condition referring to the past:
- If (indeed) I paid attention … (I’m not sure if I did or not.)

But our original sentence expresses a counterfactual:

The speaker assumes she did not pay attention to every piece of advice.
She’s imagining what would have happened if she had.

To express that kind of unreal past condition, Croatian strongly prefers:

“Da sam pazila na svaki savjet, možda bih napravila manje pogrešaka.”

So, while “ako sam pazila” is grammatically possible in other contexts, it does not fit the intended “if I had…” (but I didn’t) meaning here. For that, “da sam” is the natural choice.

Is there a difference in meaning or tone between “napravila bih manje pogrešaka” and “učinila bih manje pogrešaka”?

Both “napraviti” and “učiniti” can mean “to make (a mistake)”, and in many contexts they are interchangeable.

“napraviti pogrešku”
“učiniti pogrešku”
Both ≈ to make a mistake.

Subtle differences:

“napraviti” is very common, slightly more colloquial / neutral in everyday talk.
“učiniti” can sound a bit more formal or bookish in some contexts, though it’s still common.

In this sentence:

“možda bih napravila manje pogrešaka”
“možda bih učinila manje pogrešaka”

Both are correct. The meaning is the same; any difference is just stylistic. For everyday speech, “napravila” is perfectly natural.