Questions & Answers about Ne želim ostaviti psa kod kuće.
Here’s a simple gloss:
- Ne – not
- želim – I want / I wish (1st person singular of željeti)
- ostaviti – to leave (perfective infinitive)
- psa – the dog (accusative singular of pas)
- kod – at, at the place of
- kuće – of the house / of home (genitive singular of kuća, used here in the fixed phrase kod kuće = “at home”)
So structure-wise it’s:
Not + I-want + to-leave + dog-ACC + at + home-GEN.
Pas is the basic (dictionary) form, the nominative singular (used for the subject of a sentence).
Here, pas/psa is the direct object of the verb ostaviti (“to leave”), so it must be in the accusative case.
For animate masculine nouns like pas, the accusative singular ending is -a, not the same as nominative.
So:
- Nominative: pas – “the dog” (subject)
- Accusative: psa – “(the) dog” (object)
Example contrast:
- Pas spava. – The dog is sleeping. (subject → nominative)
- Vidim psa. – I see the dog. (object → accusative)
Psa is accusative singular masculine animate.
Use the accusative mainly for:
Direct objects:
- Ne želim ostaviti psa. – I don’t want to leave the dog.
- Kupujem knjigu. – I am buying a book.
Some prepositions (not in this sentence) like za (for), kroz (through), na (onto, in some uses), when they govern accusative.
Key thing here: because pas is animate and masculine, its accusative changes form to psa.
Kod kuće is a very common fixed expression meaning “at home”.
- kod is a preposition meaning “at (someone’s place), by, near”
- It requires the genitive case.
- kuća (house, home) → kuće (genitive singular).
So literally, kod kuće is “at (the) house/home”, but idiomatically it’s simply “at home”.
Because kod always takes genitive, kuća must become kuće.
You can say u kući, but the nuance is different:
kod kuće – “at home” in the general, usual sense of location (home as your place).
- Ne želim ostaviti psa kod kuće. – I don’t want to leave the dog at home.
u kući – literally “in the house / inside the house” (physical interior).
- Ne želim ostaviti psa u kući. – I don’t want to leave the dog inside the house.
In many contexts they overlap, but kod kuće is the standard way to say “at home”.
Croatian is a pro‑drop language: subject pronouns (ja, ti, on, etc.) are usually omitted when the verb ending already shows the person.
- želim clearly marks 1st person singular (I want), so ja is not needed.
You could say:
- Ja ne želim ostaviti psa kod kuće.
This is grammatically correct, but it usually adds emphasis on I (as opposed to someone else):
- “I don’t want to leave the dog at home (but maybe someone else does).”
In Croatian, ne comes directly before the conjugated verb that it negates:
- Želim ostaviti psa. – I want to leave the dog.
- Ne želim ostaviti psa. – I don’t want to leave the dog.
You cannot move ne somewhere else, for example:
- ✗ Želim ne ostaviti psa. – wrong / unnatural
- ✗ Ostaviti ne želim psa. – wrong in standard speech
The normal pattern is:
[Ne] + [finite verb] + [infinitive / object / rest of sentence].
Croatian has aspect: perfective vs imperfective verbs.
ostaviti – perfective: “to leave (once, as a complete action)”
- Focus on the result / completion.
- Used for single, whole actions, often in the future or in narratives.
- Ne želim ostaviti psa. – I don’t want to (ever / this time) leave the dog.
ostavljati – imperfective: “to be leaving, to leave repeatedly, to keep leaving”
- Focus on the process or repeated action.
- Ne želim ostavljati psa kod kuće. – I don’t want to (keep) leaving the dog at home / I don’t want to make a habit of leaving the dog at home.
In your sentence, ostaviti fits well because it sounds like a single concrete act (“I don’t want to leave the dog at home (on this occasion / in general as an act)”).
No. Two issues:
- hoću is a form of htjeti, which in modern standard Croatian is mostly used for “will / am going to” (future) or strong desire, not as a simple “want” the way English “want” works.
- Negation + htjeti is normally used as “won’t” / “refuse to”, not as “don’t want to” in the mild sense.
Correct/common patterns:
- Ne želim ostaviti psa kod kuće. – I don’t want to leave the dog at home.
- Neću ostaviti psa kod kuće. – I will not / I’m not going to leave the dog at home. (decision, refusal)
So for “don’t want”, željeti (želim) is the natural choice.
Yes, Croatian word order is flexible, and both are grammatical:
- Ne želim ostaviti psa kod kuće. – neutral, standard word order.
- Ne želim psa ostaviti kod kuće. – still correct, but slightly emphasises “psa” (“the dog is what I don’t want to leave at home”).
The most neutral, textbook version is the original:
Ne želim ostaviti psa kod kuće.
Moving words around usually changes focus or emphasis, not basic meaning.
You would replace psa with the masculine accusative pronoun ga (him/it):
- Ne želim ga ostaviti kod kuće. – I don’t want to leave him at home.
Notes:
- ga is a clitic (an unstressed short pronoun), and clitics go after the first stressed word or phrase in the clause.
- That’s why it must be Ne želim ga ostaviti, not ✗Ne ga želim ostaviti.
Želim is pronounced approximately “zhe-leem”:
- ž – like the s in “measure” or “vision”.
- e – like “e” in “get” (short, pure vowel).
- i – like “ee” in “see”.
Syllables: že-lim, stress usually on the first syllable: ŽE-lim.