Learn Hardcore Croatian: Dok god ne odustanemo nakon prvog poraza, možemo naučiti nešto iz svake utakmice. - As long as we don’t give up after the first defeat, we can learn something from every match.

dok on its own can mean:
- “while” (two actions happening at the same time):
  - Dok gledam utakmicu, pijem pivo. – While I watch the match, I drink beer.
- or “as long as” (conditional/temporal), depending on context.
dok god is more clearly:
- “as long as / for as long as / so long as”
- It adds emphasis that the condition is an ongoing limit.

In this sentence:

Dok god ne odustanemo nakon prvog poraza, možemo naučiti nešto iz svake utakmice.
→ As long as we don’t give up after the first defeat, we can learn something from every match.

You could also say:

Dok ne odustanemo nakon prvog poraza…

which is also correct, but dok god makes the “as long as” / “provided that” idea stronger and clearer.

Why is ne odustanemo in the present tense, if we’re talking about the future?

In Croatian, it is normal to use the present tense in clauses introduced by words like dok, kad, ako when talking about the future.

So:

Dok god ne odustanemo…
literally: While we don’t give up…
functionally: As long as we don’t give up (in the future)…

Croatian does not usually say:

✗ Dok god ne ćemo odustati… (this sounds wrong / unnatural)

Compare:

Kad pobijedimo, slavit ćemo.
When we win, we will celebrate.
(present pobijedimo for a future event)

The future meaning comes from context, not from the verb tense itself in that subordinate clause.

What exactly is odustanemo (person, number, aspect), and why not odustajemo?

Odustanemo is:

from the verb odustati = to give up, to quit (perfective)
1st person plural, present tense: mi odustanemo = we (will) give up (as a single act)

Form of the present tense (perfective):

ja odustanem
ti odustaneš
on/ona/ono odustane
mi odustanemo
vi odustanete
oni/one/ona odustanu

Why odustanemo and not odustajemo?

odustati (perfective) – focuses on the completed act of giving up.
odustajati (imperfective) – focuses on an ongoing/repeated process of giving up.

Here the idea is: as long as we don’t (ever) actually give up that first time, i.e. don’t commit the act of giving up after the first loss. That’s why the perfective is used:

ne odustanemo nakon prvog poraza
= don’t (ever) give up after the first defeat (as a single act).

Odustajemo would sound more like “while we are (in general) giving up / tend to give up”, which doesn’t fit this specific, one‑time situation.

Why is it nakon prvog poraza, not nakon prvi poraz?

Because the preposition nakon (“after”) always takes the genitive case.

prvi poraz = the first defeat (nominative, masculine singular)
nakon
- genitive → nakon prvog poraza

Forms:

Nominative: prvi poraz – the first defeat (subject)
Genitive: prvog poraza – of the first defeat (used after nakon)

So:

Nakon poraza – after a/the defeat
Nakon prvog poraza – after the first defeat

Saying ✗ nakon prvi poraz is simply a case error.

Why do we say možemo naučiti and not something like možemo da naučimo or možemo učiti?

Construction with “moći” (to be able to, can)

In standard Croatian, moći is followed directly by the infinitive:

možemo naučiti – we can learn
mogu doći – they can come

The form možemo da naučimo is typical for Serbian; in standard Croatian it is felt as non‑standard or foreign‑sounding.

Why “naučiti” and not “učiti”?

učiti (imperfective) – to be learning, to study (process)
naučiti (perfective) – to learn something to completion, to have learned, to end up knowing it (result)

In this sentence, the idea is that from each match we can actually gain some lesson/result, not just be in the process of studying. So naučiti is more appropriate:

možemo naučiti nešto iz svake utakmice
= we can (manage to) learn something from every match (get a concrete takeaway)

You could say možemo učiti iz svake utakmice, but that would sound more like “we can study / we can learn (in general) from every match” and is weaker in terms of result.

What does nešto mean here, and what kind of word is it?

Nešto is an indefinite pronoun meaning “something”.

In this sentence:

naučiti nešto = to learn something

Grammar:

Base form: nešto (neuter)
Case here: accusative as the direct object of naučiti
But for neuter nouns/pronouns, nominative and accusative often look the same, so the form nešto doesn’t change.

It can also sometimes mean “a bit, somewhat” (e.g. nešto je skupo – “it’s somewhat expensive”), but here it clearly means “something (unspecified)”.

Why is it iz svake utakmice and not, for example, od svake utakmice or in the plural?

Preposition “iz” + genitive

iz literally means “out of / from inside”
It takes the genitive case

So:

iz utakmice – from (out of) the match
iz svake utakmice – from every match

Here, iz suggests we are drawing / extracting something (a lesson) from within each match. That’s why iz fits very well.

Why not od svake utakmice?

od (+ genitive) is also “from”, but often in the sense of origin, cause, source:
- učiti od učitelja – to learn from a teacher
- umoran sam od posla – I’m tired from work

Od svake utakmice is not wrong, but iz svake utakmice is the more idiomatic, common way to say “learn from every match” (extracting experience/lessons from it).

Why singular utakmice, not plural?

Croatian often uses a singular noun with “svaki / svaka / svako” to mean “each, every”:
- svaka utakmica – every match
- svake utakmice (genitive) – of every match

English says “every match” (singular) here too, so the structures match nicely:

iz svake utakmice = from every match

Can we change the word order in this sentence, and would it change the meaning?

Croatian word order is fairly flexible, so several variants are possible, with differences mainly in emphasis, not basic meaning.

Original:

Dok god ne odustanemo nakon prvog poraza, možemo naučiti nešto iz svake utakmice.

Possible alternatives:

Main clause first:
- Možemo naučiti nešto iz svake utakmice, dok god ne odustanemo nakon prvog poraza.
  – Same meaning; the condition comes after the statement instead of before. It can feel like an “added condition” or afterthought.
Moving objects around:
- Možemo nešto naučiti iz svake utakmice.
- Možemo iz svake utakmice naučiti nešto.
- Iz svake utakmice možemo naučiti nešto.

All are grammatical. The most neutral/pragmatically usual here is close to the original order, but speakers may move nešto or iz svake utakmice for emphasis or style.

The condition clause with “dok god” can go first or last; putting it first, as in the original, highlights the condition as the framing idea of the whole sentence.

There is no word for “we” in the Croatian sentence. How do we know it means “we”?

Croatian usually omits personal pronouns (I, you, we, etc.) because the verb ending already shows the person and number.

odustanemo – 1st person plural form: we give up
možemo – 1st person plural form: we can

So:

(Mi) ne odustanemo – (We) don’t give up
(Mi) možemo naučiti – (We) can learn

The pronoun mi (“we”) is only added when you want extra emphasis or contrast:

Mi ne odustanemo nakon prvog poraza, ali oni odustanu.
We don’t give up after the first defeat, but they do.

In the neutral sentence, it’s more natural not to say mi at all. The “we” is fully encoded in the verb forms.