Learn Hardcore Croatian: Doktor kaže da restoran mora smanjivati količinu soli u jelima. - The doctor says that the restaurant has to reduce the amount of salt in the dishes.

Da here is a conjunction that introduces a subordinate clause – it works very much like English that in sentences like He says that the restaurant must….

Function: It marks the beginning of the content of what the doctor says.
- Main clause: Doktor kaže
- Subordinate clause: da restoran mora smanjivati količinu soli u jelima
Can it be omitted?
In standard Croatian, you normally cannot leave da out in this kind of sentence.
- ✅ Doktor kaže da restoran mora smanjivati…
- ❌ Doktor kaže restoran mora smanjivati… (sounds wrong / ungrammatical)
Alternative: You can sometimes use kako instead of da in reported speech:
- Doktor kaže kako restoran mora smanjivati količinu soli u jelima.

So yes, da is very similar to English that, but unlike English, Croatian usually requires it in this structure.

What is the difference between smanjivati and smanjiti here? Why is the imperfective form used?

Croatian verbs come in pairs: imperfective and perfective.

smanjivati – imperfective: focuses on an ongoing, repeated, or habitual process
smanjiti – perfective: focuses on a single, completed action or the result

In mora smanjivati količinu soli u jelima, using smanjivati suggests:

an ongoing policy or repeated action
“must keep reducing / must continually lower the amount of salt in the dishes”

If we used smanjiti instead:

mora smanjiti količinu soli u jelima
→ “must reduce the amount of salt in the dishes (once / to reach a target level)”

So smanjivati fits well when we think of a continuous requirement or a general rule, not just a one-time adjustment.

What grammatical case is količinu, and why is that case used?

Količinu is in the accusative singular.

Base form (nominative): količina – “amount”
Accusative singular: količinu

We use the accusative because količinu is the direct object of the verb smanjivati:

(tko?) restoran – subject
(što?) količinu – direct object

So the structure is exactly like English “to reduce the amount” – the “amount” is the thing being reduced.

Why is it soli and not sol? Is soli singular or plural, and which case is it?

The noun is:

sol – “salt” (feminine, uncountable in normal use)

In the phrase količinu soli, soli is:

genitive singular of sol

Why genitive singular?

Nouns like količina (“amount, quantity”) usually take a genitive to show “amount of what?”
- količina soli – the amount of salt
- količina šećera – the amount of sugar
- količina vode – the amount of water

So:

količina – nominative (“amount”)
količinu soli – accusative (“amount of salt”) as the object of smanjivati

Even though soli ends in -i, here it is singular genitive, not plural.

Why is it u jelima and not u jela or u jelo? Which case is jelima?

The noun:

jelo – “dish, meal” (neuter)
- nominative plural: jela
- locative plural: jelima

In u jelima, jelima is locative plural.

The preposition u can take:

locative to mean location: “in, inside”
- u jelima – “in the dishes” (where?)
accusative to mean movement “into”
- u jela – “into the dishes” (motion towards)

Here we are talking about salt in the dishes (a static location), so we use locative plural:

u jelima = “in the dishes” (in all the dishes, generally)

u jelo would be singular: “in the dish / into the dish”.

Could the word order be changed, for example Doktor kaže da restoran količinu soli mora smanjivati u jelima? How flexible is the word order?

Croatian word order is more flexible than English, but not completely free.

Your variant:

Doktor kaže da restoran količinu soli mora smanjivati u jelima.

is grammatically possible. Differences:

Default, neutral order:
- …da restoran mora smanjivati količinu soli u jelima.
  (S – V – O – adverbial)
Moving količinu soli earlier (…da restoran količinu soli mora smanjivati…) usually gives that phrase extra emphasis:
- “the amount of salt in particular is what the restaurant must be reducing”

Limits:

da must stay at the beginning of the subordinate clause.
The finite verb (mora) generally wants to be near the beginning of its clause.
You can reorder objects and adverbials to highlight or contrast them, but too much shuffling can sound unnatural.

So yes, some reordering is fine and often used for emphasis, but da restoran mora smanjivati količinu soli u jelima is the most neutral version.

What kind of verb is mora, and why is smanjivati in the infinitive?

Mora is the 3rd person singular present of the verb morati – a modal verb meaning “must, have to”.

Modal verbs in Croatian (like morati, moći, htjeti) are followed by an infinitive:

mora smanjivati – “must reduce / must be reducing”
može smanjivati – “can reduce”
želi smanjivati – “wants to reduce”

So:

mora – conjugated verb (agrees with restoran)
smanjivati – infinitive, describing the action that must be done

This construction is standard and parallels English must + verb.

Why are there no words like the or a before doktor and restoran? How do we know if it means the doctor or a doctor?

Croatian does not have articles like English a / an / the.

Doktor kaže… can mean:
- The doctor says… (if speaker and listener know which doctor)
- A doctor says… (if mentioning some doctor for the first time)
restoran is the same:
- could be the restaurant or a restaurant, depending on context.

How do we know?

From the context and situation.
Sometimes from word order or other information already mentioned in the conversation/text.

So you translate doktor and restoran as a/the doctor, a/the restaurant according to what makes sense in English, but in Croatian the words themselves do not mark that difference.

What is the difference between kaže and govori? Could we say Doktor govori da restoran mora smanjivati…?

Both verbs relate to speech, but they are used a bit differently:

kazati / reći → kaže
- “to say, to tell”
- more focused on a specific statement or piece of information
- very natural for reported speech with da:
  - Doktor kaže da…
govoriti → govori
- “to speak, to talk” (more about the act of speaking in general, or longer speech)
- can also introduce reported content, especially if the speaking is ongoing or repeated

In your sentence:

✅ Doktor kaže da restoran mora smanjivati…
– sounds like reporting a specific statement.
✅ Doktor govori da restoran mora smanjivati…
– suggests he is (often / repeatedly) saying or talking about this, maybe as part of ongoing discussion or lectures.

So yes, govori is grammatically possible, but kaže is a bit more neutral for quoting a single piece of advice or opinion.

Why is kaže in the present tense? Could we also say Doktor je rekao da restoran mora smanjivati…, and what is the difference?

kaže – present tense: “the doctor says”
je rekao – perfect tense: “the doctor said”

Both are correct, but they differ slightly:

Doktor kaže da restoran mora smanjivati…
- Present tense is often used in Croatian for reported statements that are still valid now.
- Implies this is the doctor’s current opinion or advice.
Doktor je rekao da restoran mora smanjivati…
- Refers to a specific past event: at some point in the past, he said this.
- It can still be his opinion now, but the narrative focuses on that past moment.

So yes, you can use je rekao, but kaže makes the statement feel more immediate and current.

In da restoran mora smanjivati količinu soli u jelima, how do we know that restoran is the subject of mora smanjivati, and not doktor?

Croatian shows the subject mostly by case (nominative) and clause structure, not by position alone.

We have two clauses:

Main clause:
- Doktor – nominative singular, subject of kaže
- Verb: kaže
Subordinate clause introduced by da:
- restoran – nominative singular, subject of mora smanjivati
- Verbs: mora smanjivati

Inside the da-clause, restoran is the only nominative noun, so it must be the subject there. Doktor belongs to the main clause and does not function as subject in the subordinate one.

English works similarly:

“The doctor says that the restaurant must reduce…”
Inside the that-clause, the restaurant is clearly the subject of must reduce, not the doctor.

Can we rewrite this using direct speech, like Doktor kaže: Restoran mora smanjivati količinu soli u jelima.? Does anything have to change?

Yes, you can switch from indirect to direct speech.

Indirect speech (original type):

Doktor kaže da restoran mora smanjivati količinu soli u jelima.

Direct speech:

Doktor kaže: Restoran mora smanjivati količinu soli u jelima.

Changes:

You remove the conjunction da.
You add appropriate punctuation (usually a colon, and often quotation marks in writing).
The form of the sentence inside the direct quote stays the same (same tense, same words), because you are now “quoting” him.

So grammatically nothing inside Restoran mora smanjivati količinu soli u jelima needs to change.

Is Doktor capitalized here because it’s a title like Doctor in English, or just because it’s at the beginning of the sentence?

In this sentence, Doktor is capitalized only because it is the first word of the sentence.

General rules:

Common nouns like doktor, restoran, jelo, sol are not capitalized in Croatian in the middle of a sentence.
They are capitalized only:
- at the beginning of a sentence
- or when part of a proper name (for example, Doktor Ivo Horvat, used as a title + name)

So if the word doktor appeared in the middle of a sentence, it would be written doktor, not Doktor.