Learn Hardcore Croatian: Predugo gledanje u ekran mi smeta. - Looking at the screen for too long bothers me.

Using gledam (I look) would change the sentence into something like “I look at the screen for too long, it bothers me”, which is a different construction. Here, Croatian prefers a noun phrase as the subject.

What exactly does predugo mean, and why is there no word for “for” like in “for too long”?

Predugo means too long / for too long by itself:

dugo = long, for a long time
predugo = too long, for too long (excessively long)

Croatian doesn’t need a separate word like English for in this case. The idea of duration is included inside dugo / predugo.

So:

Predugo gledanje u ekran ≈ “looking at the screen for too long”
(no extra preposition is used for “for”).

Why is it u ekran and not u ekranu?

The preposition u can take either:

Accusative → direction, movement into / towards
Locative → location in / inside

Here we have u ekran (accusative singular: ekran), because with verbs of looking, Croatian conceptualizes it as direction of gaze (towards the screen), not as being inside the screen:

gledati u ekran – to look at / into the screen (accusative)
biti u ekranu – to be in the screen (locative, rarely used; different meaning)

So u ekran is the normal pattern after gledati in this meaning.

Could I say gledanje ekrana instead of gledanje u ekran?

You can say gledanje ekrana, but it sounds a bit different:

gledanje u ekran – literally “looking into the screen”; this is the natural expression for staring at the screen.
gledanje ekrana – literally “looking of the screen”; grammatically OK (genitive), but less idiomatic for this context and sounds more like “the viewing of the screen” in an abstract way.

For describing screen time / staring at a screen, the common, natural phrase is gledanje u ekran.

Why is ekran singular? In English we might say “screens” in general.

Croatian very often uses a singular noun in a generic sense where English might use a plural:

gledanje u ekran – literally “looking into the screen”, but understood as “looking into a / the screen (in general)”.

If you really want to emphasize multiple screens, you can say:

Predugo gledanje u ekrane mi smeta. – “Looking into screens for too long bothers me.”

But the generic singular ekran is perfectly normal and natural.

What case is gledanje, and does predugo have to agree with it?

Gledanje is nominative singular neuter – it’s the subject.
Predugo is in the same form for neuter singular (and also for the adverb), so it fits naturally before gledanje.

In practice:

dugo gledanje – long watching
predugo gledanje – too long watching

You don’t see visible agreement changes here because dugo / predugo in neuter singular and as an adverb look the same. The important thing is: it correctly matches the noun gledanje.

What exactly does mi mean here, and how is it different from meni?

Both come from the pronoun ja (I):

mi – dative singular clitic (“to me”), short form
meni – dative singular stressed form (“to me”), longer form

In this sentence:

mi smeta = “it bothers me / is bothersome to me”

You could also say:

Meni predugo gledanje u ekran smeta. – same meaning, with meni emphasized (e.g. “For me, looking at the screen for too long is a problem”).

By default, with smetati, Croatian usually uses the clitic: Smeta mi…

Why mi smeta and not me smeta? In English it’s “bothers me”.

Different verbs in Croatian require different cases:

smetati nekome – to bother someone (dative)
živcirati / nervirati nekoga – to irritate / annoy someone (accusative)

So:

smeta mi – it bothers me (dative: mi)
nervira me – it annoys me (accusative: me)

Saying smeta me would sound wrong to native speakers, because smetati expects the dative form (mi, ti, mu, joj, nam, vam, im).

Why is it smeta and not smetaju?

The verb agrees with the subject, which is singular:

Subject: Predugo gledanje u ekran (one activity → singular)
Verb: smeta (3rd person singular)

If the subject were plural, the verb would be plural:

Predugi sati za računalom mi smetaju.
“Overly long hours at the computer bother me.”
(subject = sati → plural → smetaju)

Here, since gledanje is treated as a single activity, smeta is correct.

Can I move mi somewhere else in the sentence, like in English?

Mi is a clitic, and Croatian clitics have strict placement rules: they normally go in second position in the clause.

Natural options include:

Predugo gledanje u ekran mi smeta. ✅
Meni predugo gledanje u ekran smeta. ✅ (using stressed meni, not the clitic)

Forms like:

Mi smeta predugo gledanje u ekran. – sounds unnatural
Predugo gledanje u ekran smeta mi. – possible in some styles, but much less natural and quite marked in everyday speech

For learners, stick with Predugo gledanje u ekran mi smeta. or, with emphasis on “me”: Meni predugo gledanje u ekran smeta.

What’s the difference between predugo and previše in a sentence like this?

Both can express “too much”, but they focus on different things:

predugo – too long (in time)
- Predugo gledanje u ekran mi smeta.
  “Looking at the screen for too long bothers me.” (duration is the problem)
previše – too much (in quantity/amount)
- Previše gledanja u ekran mi smeta.
  “Too much looking at the screen bothers me.” (amount/frequency is the problem)

They’re very close in meaning here; often either sounds OK, but predugo clearly highlights length of time.