Learn Hardcore Croatian: Kad bi on imao više strpljenja, ne bi ga toliko smetale male pogreške. - If he had more patience, small mistakes would not bother him so much.

Kad bi on imao više strpljenja, ne bi ga toliko smetale male pogreške.

If he had more patience, small mistakes would not bother him so much.

Breakdown of Kad bi on imao više strpljenja, ne bi ga toliko smetale male pogreške.

Elon.io is an online learning platform

We have an entire course teaching Croatian grammar and vocabulary.

Start learning Croatian now

Questions & Answers about Kad bi on imao više strpljenja, ne bi ga toliko smetale male pogreške.

What does kad bi mean here, and how is it different from ako or kada?

Here kad bi introduces a hypothetical, unreal condition, roughly “if he had” (with the idea that he doesn’t actually have more patience).

kad literally means when, but in combination with the conditional bi it often works like if in unreal/imagined conditions.
kada is just the longer form of kad. You could say Kada bi on imao više strpljenja… with no real change in meaning; kad is a bit more colloquial/shorter.

Comparison:

Kad bi on imao više strpljenja… = If he had more patience… (contrary to fact, purely hypothetical)
Ako on ima više strpljenja… = If he has more patience… (real, open possibility)

So kad bi here signals an unreal/imagined situation rather than a real, testable condition.

Why do we have bi twice in the sentence? Could one of them be left out?

The sentence has two separate verb phrases in the conditional:

(Kad) bi on imao više strpljenja – bi
- imao
ne bi ga toliko smetale (male pogreške) – bi
- smetale

In Croatian, the conditional is formed with:

the auxiliary bih / bi / bismo / biste / bi
plus the l-participle (the “past” form: imao, smetale, radio, vidjeli, etc.)

Each finite verb that is in the conditional mood needs its own bi.
You cannot say:

✗ Kad on imao više strpljenja, ne bi ga toliko smetale male pogreške.

That sounds wrong: the first verb (imao) is missing its conditional auxiliary.

So both bi’s are required because both imao and smetale are in the conditional.

What tense or form is imao? Why not just ima?

Imao is the l-participle (traditionally called the “past participle”), masculine singular of imati (to have).

In Croatian, the conditional is:

bi (conditional auxiliary)
l-participle (imao, radio, vidjeli, našla, etc.)

So:

ima = he has (present indicative)
bi imao = he would have (conditional)

You cannot use the simple present with bi:

✗ Kad bi on ima više strpljenja… – incorrect
✓ Kad bi on imao više strpljenja… – correct conditional

If the subject were feminine, you would say imala:

Kad bi ona imala više strpljenja…

Why is it više strpljenja instead of više strpljenje?

After više (more) you normally use the genitive case:

više + genitive

Strpljenje (patience) is a neuter noun:

nominative singular: strpljenje
genitive singular: strpljenja

So:

✗ više strpljenje – wrong case
✓ više strpljenja – correct (more of patience)

This is the same pattern you see with many quantity words:

puno strpljenja – a lot of patience
malo vremena – little time
više novca – more money

Why is on (he) explicitly mentioned? Could we just say Kad bi imao više strpljenja…?

Yes, you can absolutely drop on:

Kad bi imao više strpljenja, ne bi ga toliko smetale male pogreške.

Croatian is a pro-drop language: subject pronouns are often omitted because the verb form already tells you the person and number.

So why include on?

on adds emphasis or contrast, often implying he, as opposed to someone else.
For example, in a context like: Others manage, but *he doesn’t*.

Without context, including on slightly stresses the subject; leaving it out sounds more neutral and typical in everyday speech.

What exactly does ga refer to, and why is it ga and not njega or mu?

Ga is a clitic (unstressed pronoun) meaning him, and it refers back to on (he).

Case and form:

ga is the unstressed accusative pronoun for njega (him)
mu is the unstressed dative for *njemu (to him)

The verb smetati in this pattern behaves like to bother / to annoy (someone) and normally takes an accusative object:

Male pogreške ga smetaju. – Small mistakes bother him.
- male pogreške – subject (nominative)
- ga – object (accusative)

If you wanted the dative construction (less common in this exact pattern), you would use mu:

Male pogreške mu smetaju. – Small mistakes bother him. (dative)

Njega is the stressed (strong) form of the pronoun. You use it when you want to emphasize:

Male pogreške smetaju baš njega. – It’s him in particular that small mistakes bother.

In our sentence, the normal unstressed object form is expected, so ga is right.

Why is smetale feminine plural?

The verb form smetale agrees with the subject of the clause, which is male pogreške:

pogreška = mistake (feminine noun)
- nominative singular: pogreška
- nominative plural: pogreške
male – feminine plural form of the adjective mali (small)

So male pogreške is feminine plural, and the l-participle must match:

(one) mala pogreška bi ga smetala – f. sg.
(many) male pogreške bi ga smetale – f. pl.

That’s why the verb is smetale, not smetao or smetalo.

Why are male pogreške in the nominative case and not accusative?

In the second clause, male pogreške are the subject – they are the things that bother him:

(One) small mistake would bother him.
(Small) mistakes wouldn’t bother him so much.

Structure of the second clause:

male pogreške – what is doing the bothering → subject (nominative)
ga – who is being bothered → object (accusative)
ne bi … smetale – predicate in the conditional

You can see the same thing if you put it in a more straightforward word order:

Male pogreške ga ne bi toliko smetale.

So nominative is correct here because male pogreške is not “what he bothers”; it’s “what bothers him” – the grammatical subject.

Can the word order be changed? For example, could we say Male pogreške ga ne bi toliko smetale?

Yes, Croatian allows relatively flexible word order, and:

Male pogreške ga ne bi toliko smetale.

is perfectly correct and quite natural. It often sounds clearer because subject–verb–object order is more transparent.

A few possible variants (all grammatical, with slightly different emphasis):

Ne bi ga toliko smetale male pogreške. – neutral-ish; focus often on how much they bother him.
Male pogreške ga ne bi toliko smetale. – slight emphasis on small mistakes as the topic.
Male bi ga pogreške manje smetale. – emphasizes small mistakes and possibly the comparison (less).

What you cannot do is move the clitic ga freely anywhere:

✗ Ne bi toliko ga smetale male pogreške. – ungrammatical word order

Clitic pronouns (ga, mu, se, je, etc.) must appear in a specific “second position” and in a fixed order relative to other clitics and the first stressed element of the clause. That’s why the original ne bi ga toliko smetale… is structured the way it is.

What does toliko add to the meaning, and how is it different from tako or tako puno?

Here toliko means roughly “so much / that much” and modifies smetale:

ne bi ga toliko smetale
they wouldn’t bother him so much / to that degree

Common comparisons:

tako – so (in such a way / to such a degree), often more general
- Ne bi ga tako smetale. – They wouldn’t bother him like that / so.
toliko – that much / so much, often implies a measure or degree (sometimes previously mentioned or implied)
- Ne bi ga toliko smetale. – They wouldn’t bother him to that same extent (as now).
tako puno – so much / so many, explicitly with a sense of quantity
- Ne bi ga tako puno smetale. – They wouldn’t bother him so much (with clearer emphasis on amount/extent).

In this sentence, toliko nicely expresses the idea that in the real world, these mistakes do bother him a lot, and in the hypothetical world (with more patience), they wouldn’t bother him to that extent.

Could we replace kad bi with ako bi or use da instead? Would the meaning change?

You can change the conjunction, but there are nuance differences.

Ako bi on imao više strpljenja, ne bi ga toliko smetale male pogreške.
- Grammatically possible, but many speakers feel ako + bi is either a bit clumsy or slightly more formal / “textbooky”.
- Ako usually introduces a real or open condition:
  - Ako ima više strpljenja, neće ga smetati male pogreške. – If he has more patience (and he might), small mistakes will not bother him.
With bi, it still becomes hypothetical, but kad bi is more idiomatic for this clearly unreal situation.
Da je on imao više strpljenja, ne bi ga toliko smetale male pogreške.
- This uses da + past perfect (je imao) and describes an unreal past:
  - If he had had more patience (earlier / at that time), small mistakes wouldn’t have bothered him so much.
- It refers to a past hypothetical, not a present/general one.

So:

Kad bi on imao… – unreal in general or present time (If he had… now / generally).
Da je on imao… – unreal in the past (If he had had… back then).

Does moving toliko change the meaning, for example: Ne bi ga smetale toliko male pogreške?

Yes, moving toliko slightly changes what is being emphasized.

Original:

Ne bi ga toliko smetale male pogreške.
Focus: how much they bother him.
Roughly: Small mistakes wouldn’t bother him so much.

Variant:

Ne bi ga smetale toliko male pogreške.
Here toliko is closer to male pogreške, and it tends to be interpreted more as “such small mistakes / mistakes that small” rather than “to that degree”.
That sounds more like:
- Such small mistakes wouldn’t bother him.
  (emphasizing how small the mistakes are, not how much they bother him)

In practice, context and intonation matter a lot, but the original position (toliko next to smetale) most clearly expresses degree of bothering rather than degree of smallness.