Breakdown of Na festivalu poezije pjesnik i pjesnikinja zajedno čitaju svoje pjesme.
Questions & Answers about Na festivalu poezije pjesnik i pjesnikinja zajedno čitaju svoje pjesme.
Croatian uses na with the locative case for many events and organized activities:
- na festivalu – at the festival
- na koncertu – at the concert
- na sastanku – at the meeting
- na predavanju – at the lecture
U + locative is more for being inside something (a room, building, city, country):
- u kući – in the house
- u gradu – in the city
- u školi – in school (literally: in the school building)
A festival is treated like an event you are “at,” not something you are physically inside, so Croatian uses na festivalu, not u festivalu.
Festival is a masculine noun. In the sentence it appears after na, which requires the locative case here (location: “at the festival”).
- Nominative (dictionary form): festival
- Locative singular: festivalu
So:
Na + festivalu = at the festival.
This -u ending is the regular locative singular ending for many masculine nouns:
- u gradu (from grad) – in the city
- na koncertu (from koncert) – at the concert
Poezije is the genitive singular of poezija (poetry).
Structure:
- festival poezije literally = festival of poetry.
This is a common pattern: Noun + genitive to show what something is about or what it contains:
- čitaonica novina – reading room of newspapers (newspaper reading room)
- čaj od mente – tea of mint (mint tea)
So na festivalu poezije = at the poetry festival, literally at the festival of poetry. The genitive poezije shows that poetry is the “content” or topic of the festival.
Croatian distinguishes grammatical gender more explicitly in many professions:
- pjesnik – a (male) poet
- pjesnikinja – a (female) poet
In the sentence, pjesnik i pjesnikinja means a male poet and a female poet. Both together form a compound subject, which is why the verb is plural (čitaju).
The subject is pjesnik i pjesnikinja (two people), so the verb must be 3rd person plural.
Verb: čitati (to read), present tense:
- ja čitam
- ti čitaš
- on / ona / ono čita
- mi čitamo
- vi čitate
- oni / one / ona čitaju
Because we have “he and she” (they), we use oni čitaju → čitaju.
If there were only one subject, for example pjesnik čita, then it would be čita (3rd person singular).
Zajedno means together.
In this sentence:
pjesnik i pjesnikinja zajedno čitaju svoje pjesme
= the poet and the poetess read their poems together.
Position: zajedno is an adverb and is quite flexible. It usually goes:
- before the verb: zajedno čitaju
- or after the subject: pjesnik i pjesnikinja zajedno čitaju
Other possible placements (with slightly different emphasis, but still correct):
- Zajedno pjesnik i pjesnikinja čitaju svoje pjesme.
- Pjesnik i pjesnikinja čitaju zajedno svoje pjesme.
The version in the sentence (subject – adverb – verb) is very natural and neutral.
Svoje is a reflexive possessive pronoun. It always refers back to the subject of the sentence.
Subject: pjesnik i pjesnikinja (they)
Object: svoje pjesme – their own poems
So svoje pjesme means the poems that belong to them (the subject).
Form:
- svoje here is accusative plural feminine, agreeing with pjesme (plural of pjesma, a feminine noun).
Difference from njihove:
- svoje pjesme – clearly “their own poems” (refers to the subject)
- njihove pjesme – “their poems” (might be theirs, but could be more ambiguous or contrastive, depending on context)
In most neutral sentences where the subject is also the owner, svoje is preferred.
Base noun: pjesma (a poem / song), feminine.
In this sentence, pjesme is:
- accusative plural (direct object of čitaju)
- for feminine nouns like pjesma, the nominative plural and accusative plural often look the same: pjesme.
So:
Singular:
- Nominative: pjesma (one poem)
- Accusative: pjesmu (I read one poem – čitam pjesmu)
Plural:
- Nominative: pjesme (poems)
- Accusative: pjesme (I read poems – čitam pjesme)
Pjesama is genitive plural, used for things like quantities:
- nekoliko pjesama – several poems
- bez pjesama – without poems
Here we need the direct object in the plural → pjesme.
Yes, that word order is also correct:
- Na festivalu poezije pjesnik i pjesnikinja zajedno čitaju svoje pjesme.
- Pjesnik i pjesnikinja zajedno čitaju svoje pjesme na festivalu poezije.
The meaning is essentially the same. The difference is what is emphasized first:
- Starting with Na festivalu poezije puts the setting (at the poetry festival) in focus.
- Starting with Pjesnik i pjesnikinja puts the people in focus.
Croatian word order is relatively flexible. As long as the cases are correct (here shown by endings like -u, -e), the core meaning stays clear; word order mainly affects emphasis and style.
Croatian does not have articles like a/an or the.
- pjesnik can mean a poet or the poet
- pjesnikinja can mean a poetess or the poetess
Which English article you choose is decided by context, not by a specific Croatian word:
- If this is the first time they are mentioned, English usually uses a poet and a poetess.
- If they were already mentioned before, English might use the poet and the poetess.
Croatian simply uses pjesnik i pjesnikinja in both cases.
Na festivalu literally means at the festival (location), but in practice it can also carry a time / occasion meaning similar to “during the festival” or “at the time of the festival”.
Croatian often uses na + locative for these event contexts:
- Na koncertu sviraju nove pjesme. – At the concert, they play new songs.
- Na predavanju postavljamo pitanja. – During the lecture / At the lecture, we ask questions.
So Na festivalu poezije… naturally sets the scene in both space and time, without needing a separate word for “during”.
Svoje pjesme only tells us that the poems belong to the subject (the poet and the poetess). It does not specify whether:
- each of them is reading different poems they wrote individually, or
- they are reading the same set of poems they own together.
Both are possible; context would clarify it. Grammatically, svoje just says: the poems are theirs (the subject’s), not someone else’s.
Approximate pronunciation:
pjesnik: PYES-neek
- pj = like py in “py-” (palatalized p, similar to saying p with a following y sound)
- je = like ye in yes
- stress is usually on the first syllable: PJES-nik
pjesnikinja: PYES-nee-kee-nya
- ki = “kee”
- nja = “nya” (like Spanish ñ in señor)
- again, stress typically on the first syllable: PJES-ni-ki-nja
The cluster pj is basically a softened p plus j, so thinking “py-es” helps. Practice slowly: pje-snik, then speed up.
- poezija – poetry as a general concept or genre
- pjesma (plural pjesme) – a poem (and also “a song” in many contexts)
So:
- festival poezije – a festival of poetry (about the genre as a whole)
- svoje pjesme – their individual poems that they read there
The sentence contrasts the general field (poezija) with the specific works (pjesme) the two people are reading.