Breakdown of Kad mi padne koncentracija, pokušavam biti strpljiv i pravim kratku pauzu, tako da mogu nastaviti učiti.
Questions & Answers about Kad mi padne koncentracija, pokušavam biti strpljiv i pravim kratku pauzu, tako da mogu nastaviti učiti.
Mi is the unstressed (clitic) dative form of ja (“I”), so it literally means “to me”.
The Croatian sentence is structured more like:
“When the concentration falls to me…” = “When my concentration drops”.
Instead of saying moja koncentracija padne (“my concentration drops”), Croatian often uses a dative experiencer:
- Kad mi padne koncentracija – literally “When concentration falls to me”
- Boli me glava – literally “The head hurts me” = “I have a headache”
So mi shows that I am the person experiencing the drop in concentration, even though koncentracija is grammatically the subject of padne.
Both padne and pada come from the verb pasti / padati (“to fall, to drop”), but they differ in aspect:
- padati – imperfective (ongoing, repeated, process) → pada
- pasti – perfective (single, finished event) → padne
In Kad mi padne koncentracija, the perfective padne is used to talk about the moment when your concentration drops (each time it happens), not the ongoing process of it dropping.
Roughly:
- Kad mi padne koncentracija – “When my concentration drops (when that moment happens)…”
- Kad mi pada koncentracija – more like “When my concentration is dropping (in the process of falling)…”, describing a more continuous state.
For a typical “whenever this happens” situation, Kad mi padne koncentracija with the perfective is very natural.
Both orders are grammatically possible:
- Kad mi padne koncentracija
- Kad mi koncentracija padne
Croatian word order is relatively flexible and is used to adjust emphasis and rhythm, not basic meaning.
In Kad mi padne koncentracija, the focus is slightly more on the event (“drops”) than on “concentration” itself. It’s a common “neutral” sounding order in this type of expression.
If you said Kad mi koncentracija padne, it’s still correct, and can sound a bit more like you’re highlighting koncentracija as the topic (“As for my concentration – when it drops…”). The difference is subtle; both are fine in everyday speech.
Croatian is a pro-drop language: subject pronouns (like ja, “I”) are often omitted because the verb ending already shows the person.
In the sentence:
- pokušavam – 1st person singular (“I try”)
- pravim – 1st person singular (“I make” / “I take [a break]”)
- mogu – 1st person singular (“I can”)
Each of these forms already tells you the subject is “I”, so ja is usually dropped unless you want to emphasize it:
- Ja pokušavam biti strpljiv – “I try to be patient” (stressing that it’s me, not someone else)
In standard Croatian, after pokušavati / pokušati (“to try”), the infinitive is preferred:
- pokušavam biti strpljiv – “I try to be patient”
- pokušavam razumjeti – “I try to understand”
A construction with da + finite verb (pokušavam da budem strpljiv) is more characteristic of Serbian and of some colloquial Croatian, but in standard Croatian the infinitive is the default and sounds more natural and neutral.
So for Croatian learners, it’s safer to use:
- pokušavam + infinitive
e.g. pokušavam naučiti, pokušavam ostati miran
Strpljiv is an adjective meaning “patient”.
Gender and number
The speaker is presumably male, so the masculine singular form is used:- masculine: strpljiv
- feminine: strpljiva
- neuter: strpljivo
A woman would say:
Pokušavam biti strpljiva.Form after “to be”
After biti (“to be”), adjectives appear in nominative and agree with the subject:- Ja sam strpljiv. (masc.)
- Ja sam strpljiva. (fem.)
The form strpljivim would be an instrumental case form of an adjective; that is not used after biti in this sense. So biti strpljiv is correct.
All three verbs exist, but they are not equally natural with pauza in this context:
- praviti pauzu – very common for “to take a break”
→ pravim kratku pauzu – “I take a short break” - uzimati pauzu – also used and correct (especially uzimati kratku pauzu); sounds a bit more literal “to take a break”.
- raditi pauzu – much less common and often feels off; raditi is “to do/work” and doesn’t pair with pauza as naturally in this meaning.
So the most natural-sounding options here are:
- pravim kratku pauzu
- uzimam kratku pauzu
The sentence uses pravim, which is perfectly idiomatic.
Kratku pauzu is in the accusative singular, feminine.
- Nominative: kratka pauza (“a short break” – subject)
- Accusative: kratku pauzu (“a short break” – direct object)
After a transitive verb like pravim (“I make, I take”), the thing you are making/taking is normally in the accusative:
- pravim kratku pauzu – “I take a short break”
- čitam knjigu – “I read a book”
- gledam seriju – “I watch a series”
Tako da can mean either:
- “so that” (expressing purpose or result)
- “so” (introducing a result / consequence)
In this sentence:
- ...pravim kratku pauzu, tako da mogu nastaviti učiti.
it is best read as “so that” or “so (that)”:
- “I take a short break, so that I can continue studying.”
Using da alone, ...pauzu, da mogu nastaviti učiti, is possible in speech, but:
- it can sound more colloquial/Serbian-like
- tako da is clearer and more standard for “so that / so”.
So for learners of Croatian, tako da + finite verb is a very useful pattern for expressing purpose/result:
- Stavim podsjetnik, tako da ne zaboravim. – “I put a reminder so that I don’t forget.”
Yes, it’s normal and common in Croatian to have verb chains like this.
The structure here is:
- mogu – “I can” (modal verb, finite)
- nastaviti – “to continue” (infinitive)
- učiti – “to study/learn” (infinitive)
So mogu nastaviti učiti literally is “I can continue to study”.
In Croatian, modals like moći, morati, htjeti, smjeti usually take an infinitive, and that infinitive can itself be a verb that takes another infinitive:
- mogu početi raditi – “I can start working”
- moram prestati pušiti – “I must stop smoking”
- želim nastaviti učiti – “I want to continue studying”
So mogu nastaviti učiti is completely natural.
Both učiti and studirati involve “studying”, but they’re used differently:
učiti
- to learn / to study (for an exam, a test, homework, a language, etc.)
- focuses on the activity of learning
- učiti hrvatski, učiti matematiku, učiti za ispit
studirati
- to study at a university; to be a student of a subject
- more about your course of study / degree
- studiram pravo – “I study law (at university)”
In mogu nastaviti učiti, we are talking about the ongoing activity of learning, so učiti is the natural choice.
You could say mogu nastaviti studirati if you mean “I can continue my (university) studies”, but that’s a bit different in meaning.
Croatian punctuation rules are similar to English in this case:
Comma after a subordinate clause at the beginning
Kad mi padne koncentracija, pokušavam...When a dependent clause (Kad mi padne koncentracija) comes before the main clause, a comma is used between them.
Comma before coordinating conjunction + clause
...pravim kratku pauzu, tako da mogu nastaviti učiti.Tako da mogu nastaviti učiti is another clause explaining the result/purpose. A comma is used before tako da when it introduces a separate clause.
So the commas mark the boundaries between clauses, much like in English:
- “When my concentration drops, I try to be patient and take a short break, so that I can continue studying.”