Beba spava u sobi.

The baby is sleeping in the room.

Breakdown of Beba spava u sobi.

• u: in
• spavati: to sleep
• soba: room
• beba: baby

Questions & Answers about Beba spava u sobi.

Why doesn’t the sentence use a word for “the” or “a”, like in English?

Croatian has no articles like “the” or “a/an”.
So beba can mean “a baby” or “the baby” depending on context, and soba/sobi can mean “a room” or “the room”.

Context (what’s been said before, what both speakers know) tells you whether it should be understood as a or the in English.

Why is it spava and not spavati?

Spavati is the infinitive form, meaning “to sleep”.

In a normal present-tense sentence with a subject, you must conjugate the verb:

• (ja) spavam – I sleep / I am sleeping
• (ti) spavaš – you sleep
• (on/ona/ono) spava – he/she/it sleeps
• (mi) spavamo – we sleep
• (vi) spavate – you (plural/formal) sleep
• (oni/one/ona) spavaju – they sleep

Here, the subject beba is third person singular, so the verb must be spava.

Why is there no word for “is” like in “The baby is sleeping”?

In Croatian, the present tense of most verbs covers both English “is sleeping” and “sleeps”. You don’t add a separate “to be” here.

• Beba spava. – can mean “The baby is sleeping.” or “The baby sleeps.”

You only use je (is) plus another word when the main meaning is not an action verb, e.g.:

• Beba je mala. – The baby is small.
• Beba je u sobi. – The baby is in the room.

What case is sobi in u sobi, and why?

Sobi is the locative singular form of soba (room).

The preposition u (“in”) can take either:

• Locative – when talking about location (where something is):
  • Beba spava u sobi. – The baby is sleeping in the room.
• Accusative – when talking about movement into something (where something is going):
  • Beba ide u sobu. – The baby is going into the room.

So in your sentence, because it’s about being located in the room (not moving into it), u requires the locative, hence u sobi.

What is the basic form of sobi and how is it declined?

The base (dictionary) form is soba (room), feminine. Partial singular paradigm:

• Nominative (subject): soba – Soba je velika. (The room is big.)
• Genitive: sobe – Vrata sobe su zatvorena. (The door of the room is closed.)
• Dative: sobi – Približio se sobi. (He approached the room.)
• Accusative: sobu – Ulazi u sobu. (He enters the room.)
• Locative: sobi – Beba spava u sobi. (The baby sleeps in the room.)
• Instrumental: sobom – Prošao je tom sobom. (He passed through that room.)

In your sentence, sobi is locative after u.

Could the sentence be Beba spava u sobu?

Not with the same meaning.

• Beba spava u sobi. – The baby is in the room and is sleeping. (location → locative)
• Beba ide u sobu. – The baby is going into the room. (movement → accusative)

Using u sobu suggests motion into the room, so you wouldn’t use it with spava (sleep), which describes a state, not motion. For sleep/location, you want u sobi.

Can beba refer to both a boy and a girl? If so, why is it grammatically feminine?

Yes. Beba can be used for both male and female babies in everyday speech.

Grammatically, beba is a feminine noun (it ends in -a), so any adjectives or pronouns referring to it in grammatical agreement are feminine:

• mala beba – a small baby
• Ona plače. – She is crying. (referring back to beba)

Even if the actual baby is a boy, grammar still follows the noun’s gender, not the real-world gender. So a baby boy is still mala beba, ona in strict grammatical terms, though people may also switch to on (he) in practice once the baby’s gender is clear from context.

Why is Beba capitalized?

It’s capitalized only because it is the first word of the sentence.

If it appeared in the middle of a sentence, it would be lowercase (unless it was a name):

• Vidim bebu. – I see the baby.

Capitalization rules here are the same as in English: first word of a sentence and proper names are capitalized.

Is Beba spava u sobi. closer to “The baby sleeps in the room” or “The baby is sleeping in the room”?

It can mean either, depending on context. Croatian present tense doesn’t strictly distinguish between simple present and present continuous:

• Habitual/general: The baby sleeps in the room.
• Right now: The baby is sleeping in the room.

If you really need to emphasize “right now”, you’d add an adverb or context, e.g. Sada beba spava u sobi. (Right now the baby is sleeping in the room.)

Could the word order be U sobi beba spava or Beba u sobi spava? Does that change the meaning?

Yes, you can change the word order. Croatian word order is relatively flexible, and changes often affect emphasis, not basic meaning:

• Beba spava u sobi. – neutral, default order (The baby is sleeping in the room.)
• U sobi beba spava. – emphasizes u sobi (in the room). Roughly: It’s in the room that the baby is sleeping (not somewhere else).
• Beba u sobi spava. – slightly highlights u sobi as well, like stressing that the baby (as opposed to someone else) is the one sleeping in the room.

In everyday speech, Beba spava u sobi. is the most neutral and common version.

How do I make this sentence negative: “The baby is not sleeping in the room”?

You add ne directly before the verb:

• Beba ne spava u sobi. – The baby is not sleeping in the room.

The word order stays the same; ne just negates spava.

How do I turn this into a yes–no question: “Is the baby sleeping in the room?”

You have a few common options:

1. Spava li beba u sobi? – Stylistically more formal or neutral.
2. Da li beba spava u sobi? – Very common in speech, more colloquial.
3. Beba spava u sobi? – Just raise your intonation at the end (like English “The baby is sleeping in the room?”). Common in spoken language.

All three can be understood as “Is the baby sleeping in the room?”; the difference is mostly style and formality.

How do I say “The babies are sleeping in the room”?

You need the plural forms of the noun and the verb:

• Bebe spavaju u sobi.

Breakdown:

• beba → bebe (plural nominative)
• spava → spavaju (3rd person singular → 3rd person plural)
• u sobi stays the same if it’s still one room; if it’s several rooms, you’d say u sobama (locative plural).