Umjesto da ide autom na fakultet, jutros ide pješice preko mosta.

In Croatian, after umjesto (“instead of”), there are two common patterns:

1. umjesto + noun (genitive)

   • Umjesto auta ide pješice.
   • “Instead of the car, he’s going on foot.”

2. umjesto da + finite verb (present tense)

   • Umjesto da ide autom, ide pješice.
   • “Instead of going by car, he’s going on foot.”

The pattern umjesto ići (with a bare infinitive) is not standard in this kind of clause. When you want to say “instead of doing X (someone does Y)”, Croatian normally uses umjesto da + present tense.

So “Umjesto da ide autom” literally is “Instead that he goes by car” and functions like an English “instead of going by car” / “rather than going by car” clause.

The sentence has two clauses:

• Umjesto da ide autom na fakultet,
• jutros ide pješice preko mosta.

Both describe the same time frame (this morning), and Croatian uses the present tense here to talk about what is happening now / today in a factual way.

You could change the tense, depending on what you mean:

• Past: Umjesto da je išao autom na fakultet, jutros je išao pješice.
  “Instead of going by car to the faculty, this morning he went on foot.”

• Future: Umjesto da ide autom na fakultet, jutros će ići pješice.
  “Instead of going by car to the faculty, this morning he will go on foot.”

In the original, using present in both clauses keeps them parallel and describes a current, actual situation: “(He usually goes by car, but) this morning he is going on foot.”

Jutros literally means “this morning”, and in many cases it does indeed go with past tense:

• Jutros sam išao na fakultet. – “This morning I went to the faculty.”

However, you can use present tense with jutros when:

• you are speaking during that morning, and
• you are describing something as part of today’s plan / arrangement / ongoing reality:

Jutros ide pješice preko mosta.
“(As for) this morning, he is going on foot across the bridge.”

In English you might naturally say “This morning he’s going on foot…” or “Today he’s walking…”. Croatian expresses that with present tense + jutros.

Autom is the short, colloquial form of automobilom, and it is in the instrumental case.

• Instrumental is used for means / instrument: “by car, by bus, by train”.
• Both autom and automobilom are acceptable; autom is more casual and very common in speech:

Examples:

• Idem autom. – “I’m going by car.”
• Pišem olovkom. – “I write with a pen.”

So “ide autom” literally is “he goes with (the) car” → “he goes by car”.

In Croatian, prepositions + case can be tricky. Here:

• na fakultet (prep na

  • accusative)
    – movement to a higher-level institution, place of activity
    – “to the faculty / to college (to attend)”

• u fakultet is usually wrong in this context; it would sound like “into the (physical) building” in a very literal or odd way.

• do fakulteta (prep do

  • genitive) means “up to / as far as the faculty” and focuses on the end point of a route, not on the idea of attending:
  • Idem do fakulteta. – “I’m going as far as the faculty.”
    (Maybe just dropping something off there.)

For attending / going to class, you normally say:

• ići na fakultet, ići na posao, ići na koncert
  (go to faculty, go to work, go to a concert)

So “ide autom na fakultet” = “he goes to the faculty by car (to study / attend)”.

Both relate to higher education but are not the same:

• sveučilište = university as a whole institution.
• fakultet = faculty / college within a university (e.g. Faculty of Law, Faculty of Medicine), or sometimes used more loosely like “college”.

In everyday speech, people often say fakultet when English speakers might just say “uni” or “college”:

• Idem na fakultet. – “I go to college / I’m a university student.”
• Studiram na Sveučilištu u Zagrebu, na Filozofskom fakultetu.
  “I study at the University of Zagreb, at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences.”

So here “na fakultet” is the usual way to say “to college / to (his) faculty”.

Yes, pješice is an adverbial form meaning “on foot”.

• ići pješice = “to go on foot / to walk (instead of using transport)”.

There is also a very common colloquial variant:

• pješke – also “on foot”.

In most everyday situations, pješice and pješke are interchangeable:

• Idem pješice. / Idem pješke. – “I’m going on foot.”

The original sentence uses the more neutral pješice, but pješke would sound completely natural in speech.

The preposition preko (“over, across”) normally takes the genitive case.

• mosta is the genitive singular of most (“bridge”).

So:

• preko mosta – “over the bridge / across the bridge”
• preko rijeke – “over the river”
• preko ulice – “across the street”

“preko most” would be grammatically incorrect because most would still be in the nominative form, but preko requires genitive.

Yes, Croatian word order is relatively flexible, and you can move jutros around to change emphasis, not basic meaning. For example:

• Jutros, umjesto da ide autom na fakultet, ide pješice preko mosta.
  Emphasis: this morning is the contrastive frame.

• Umjesto da jutros ide autom na fakultet, ide pješice preko mosta.
  Emphasis: instead of going by car this morning; here jutros clearly belongs to the first clause.

• Umjesto da ide autom na fakultet, ide jutros pješice preko mosta.
  Emphasis shifts towards “this morning he goes on foot (not usually)”.

All of these are grammatical; speakers choose the order to highlight what’s most important (usual mode of transport, the morning, the going-on-foot part, etc.). The original is a neutral, natural ordering.

You can say Umjesto da vozi autom na fakultet, but it slightly changes the focus.

• ići autom = “to go by car” (focus on how you travel, not who drives).
• voziti (autom) = “to drive (a car)” (focus on driving / being the driver).

So:

• Umjesto da ide autom na fakultet…
  “Instead of going by car to the faculty…” – neutral about who drives.

• Umjesto da vozi autom na fakultet…
  “Instead of driving to the faculty by car…” – implies he himself is the driver.

In everyday speech, if you just mean “use a car as transport”, ići autom is the more general and typical expression.

To express the idea “Instead of going by car, he doesn’t go by car but goes on foot”, you normally don’t negate the umjesto da part; you state what would happen there positively and then contrast it with reality.

Natural patterns:

• Umjesto da ide autom na fakultet, jutros ide pješice preko mosta.
  (Usual: he goes by car; reality: he goes on foot.)

If you really need to include an explicit negation, you would negate the main clause, not the “umjesto da” clause:

• Umjesto da ide autom na fakultet, jutros ne ide autom nego pješice preko mosta.
  “Instead of going by car to the faculty, this morning he is not going by car but on foot across the bridge.”

“Umjesto da ne ide autom…” is possible but tends to mean “instead of not going by car…” and becomes confusing or awkward in most real contexts. So the usual, idiomatic way is: umjesto da + positive verb, then contrast in the following clause.

The original sentence is neutral standard:

• Umjesto da ide autom na fakultet, jutros ide pješice preko mosta.

To make it more colloquial / spoken, you might hear:

• Umjesto da na faks ide autom, jutros ide pješke preko mosta.

Changes:

• fakultet → faks (slangy “college/uni”)
• pješice → pješke (colloquial variant)

You would not use such forms in a very formal written text, but they are very common in everyday conversation.