Learn Hardcore Croatian: Ne želim odustati ni nakon trećeg poraza, nego se dobro odmoriti da bih sutra igrala bolje. - I don’t want to give up even after the third defeat, but rather rest well so that tomorrow I play better.

this would be a full sentence with its own meaning, not something that depends on želim. It describes what you are doing now, not what you want.

So:

Ne želim odustati. = I don’t want to give up.
Ne odustajem. = I am not giving up. (statement about your actual behaviour, not your wish)

Could I say Ne želim da odustanem instead of Ne želim odustati?

You can hear Ne želim da odustanem, but there are some nuances:

In standard Croatian, the more natural and preferred form after željeti is:
- Ne želim odustati. (željeti + infinitive)
Da + present tense (da odustanem) is:
- very common in Serbian
- used in some Croatian dialects / informal speech
- still understandable to everyone

If you want to sound clearly standard Croatian, stick with:

Želim + infinitive → Ne želim odustati.

What does ni add in ni nakon trećeg poraza?

Ni is a negative particle that here means roughly “even not / not even”.

Because the sentence already starts with a negation (Ne želim…), ni is part of negative concord (multiple negative elements in one negative sentence), which is normal and grammatical in Croatian.

Ne želim odustati ni nakon trećeg poraza.
≈ I don’t want to give up even after the third defeat.

You could reinforce it even more with čak ni:

Ne želim odustati čak ni nakon trećeg poraza.
= I don’t want to give up not even after the third defeat.

So ni here emphasizes how determined the speaker is: “not even after the third loss.”

Why is it trećeg poraza and not treći poraz?

Because of the preposition nakon.

nakon (after) always takes the genitive case.

So you must put both the ordinal number and the noun in the genitive singular:

treći poraz – nominative (dictionary form)
trećeg poraza – genitive (required by nakon)

Morphology here:

treći → trećeg (masculine genitive singular)
poraz → poraza (masculine genitive singular)

Structure:

nakon + genitive → nakon trećeg poraza – after the third defeat

Why is nego used instead of ali?

Both nego and ali can be translated as “but”, but they are not interchangeable.

Nego is used in a contrast that follows a negation – “not X, but (rather) Y”:

Ne želim odustati, nego se dobro odmoriti…
= I don’t want to give up, but (instead) to rest well…

Other examples:

Ne kavu, nego čaj. – Not coffee, but tea.
Ne danas, nego sutra. – Not today, but tomorrow.

Ali is a more general “but” that doesn’t replace something denied; it just adds a contrast:

Želim odustati, ali ne mogu. – I want to give up, but I can’t.

In this sentence we have a replacement of one option with another after a negation, so nego is the correct conjunction.

What is the function of se in nego se dobro odmoriti?

Se is a reflexive clitic and belongs to the verb odmoriti se – to rest (oneself), to have a rest.

odmoriti = to rest something / to give something a rest
odmoriti se = to rest (yourself)

Here we mean “to rest myself”, so we must use se:

nego se dobro odmoriti – but (instead) to rest well / to get a good rest

Without se, odmoriti would usually need a direct object:

Odmoriti noge. – to rest (one’s) legs.
Odmoriti glas. – to rest (one’s) voice.

With se, the object is implicitly the subject (I rest myself).

Why does se come before dobro odmoriti and not directly next to odmoriti?

Clitics like se in Croatian tend to appear in the “second position” in their clause, not necessarily right next to their verb.

In the phrase:

nego se dobro odmoriti

the clause after nego starts, and se is placed immediately after the conjunction nego, which is a very natural place for a clitic. Then we have the adverb dobro, and finally the infinitive odmoriti.

Other acceptable word orders:

nego dobro se odmoriti
nego se odmoriti dobro

The most typical spoken version many people would use is:

nego se dobro odmoriti
or
nego se dobro odmoriti da bih…

The key points:

se must stay very close to its verb (here: odmoriti).
As a clitic, it tends to go early in the clause, often right after the first word (here: nego).

What does da bih mean in da bih sutra igrala bolje?

Da bih here introduces a purpose clause, and together with igrala it corresponds to English “so that I would play” / “in order to play”.

Structure:

da – conjunction, roughly “that / so that”
bih – conditional form of biti (to be), 1st person singular
igrala – past participle (L-participle) of igrati

So:

da bih igrala ≈ so that I would play

The whole phrase:

…nego se dobro odmoriti da bih sutra igrala bolje.
≈ …but rather to rest well so that I would play better tomorrow.

This da + conditional construction is very common to express purpose or intention.

Why is it bih before igrala and not igrala bih?

In the independent conditional you will most often see:

Igrala bih sutra. – I would play tomorrow.

But in a subordinate clause introduced by da, clitics (like bih) usually move to the second position in that clause.

So:

da bih sutra igrala bolje

is structured as:

da – first word in the clause
bih – clitic in second position
sutra igrala bolje – the rest of the clause

If you said:

da igrala bih sutra bolje

that would sound unnatural; you’re breaking the usual clitic placement rule. So:

da bih igrala… is the natural, grammatical order in Croatian.

Why is the verb igrala in this form, and why is it feminine?

Igrala is the L-participle (often just called the “past participle”) of igrati (to play). In Croatian, the past tense and the conditional are built with:

a form of “biti” (to be) as an auxiliary, plus
the L-participle of the main verb, which changes for gender and number.

For the verb igrati:

masculine singular: igrao
feminine singular: igrala
neuter singular: igralo
plural (m. anim.): igrali, etc.

Conditional 1st person singular:

(ja) bih igrao – I would play (speaker is male)
(ja) bih igrala – I would play (speaker is female)

In the sentence da bih sutra igrala bolje, the speaker is female, so she uses igrala, not igrao.

So:

bih tells us it’s 1st person singular conditional,
igrala shows the subject is grammatically feminine.

Could we also say da sutra igram bolje instead of da bih sutra igrala bolje? What is the difference?

Yes, da sutra igram bolje is grammatically possible, but there is a nuance:

da + present:
- da sutra igram bolje
  can mean “so that I play better tomorrow” or “so that I will play better tomorrow”, but it sounds more immediate / less hypothetical.
da + conditional (da bih igrala):
- da bih sutra igrala bolje
  sounds more like a clear, stated purpose or goal: “so that I would be able to play better tomorrow”, a bit more polite/formal and planned.

In many everyday contexts both can work, but:

da bih igrala is a very typical, natural way to express intended result / purpose, especially when you’re explaining why you do something (I want to rest so that I would play better tomorrow).

Why is sutra placed before igrala in da bih sutra igrala bolje? Could it go somewhere else?

Word order with adverbs in Croatian is relatively flexible. Sutra (tomorrow) can be moved, but the version in the sentence is very natural:

da bih sutra igrala bolje – neutral: focus on playing better tomorrow.

Other possible orders (all understandable):

da bih igrala sutra bolje
da bih igrala bolje sutra

The differences are mostly in subtle emphasis:

sutra igrala – slight focus on tomorrow as the time.
igrala bolje sutra – the last position can highlight sutra a bit more.

In normal speech, da bih sutra igrala bolje is probably the most common-sounding version.

Why is there a comma before nego in this sentence?

There is a comma because nego here connects two clauses, not just two single words.

We have:

Clause 1: Ne želim odustati ni nakon trećeg poraza,
Clause 2: nego se dobro odmoriti da bih sutra igrala bolje.

In Croatian, when nego (or ali, i, pa, etc.) connects whole clauses, we normally separate them with a comma:

Ne želim odustati, nego se dobro odmoriti.
Neću plakati, nego ću pokušati ponovo.

If nego connects just small elements inside one clause (e.g. nouns or adjectives), there is usually no comma:

Ne kavu nego čaj.
Ne crvenu nego plavu haljinu.

Here it separates two full ideas, so the comma is required.