Learn Hardcore Croatian: Učitelj nam pokazuje kako vježbati izgovor i pravopis istih riječi. - The teacher shows us how to practice the pronunciation and spelling of the same words.

Učitelj nam pokazuje kako vježbati izgovor i pravopis istih riječi.

The teacher shows us how to practice the pronunciation and spelling of the same words.

Breakdown of Učitelj nam pokazuje kako vježbati izgovor i pravopis istih riječi.

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Questions & Answers about Učitelj nam pokazuje kako vježbati izgovor i pravopis istih riječi.

In Učitelj nam pokazuje..., where is the English “the” or “a”, and what does Učitelj tell me about gender?

Croatian has no articles like “a” or “the”, so Učitelj can mean “a teacher” or “the teacher” depending on context.

Učitelj is a masculine noun in the nominative singular (teacher).
A female teacher would usually be učiteljica.
Whether you translate it as “a teacher” or “the teacher” is decided purely by the context, not by any extra word in Croatian.

So Učitelj nam pokazuje... can be “A teacher is showing us...” or “The teacher is showing us...”.

What does nam mean exactly, what case is it, and how is it different from mi and nama?

mi = “we” (nominative, subject form)
- Example: Mi učimo hrvatski. – We are learning Croatian.
nam = “to us” (short/clitic dative plural form)
- It is used as an indirect object: Učitelj nam pokazuje... – The teacher is showing *us...*
nama = also “to us” (full/stressed dative plural form)
- Used for emphasis or after prepositions:
  - Učitelj nama pokazuje, a ne njima. – The teacher is showing *us, not them.*
  - O nama govori. – He is talking about us.

In the sentence, nam is in the dative plural and marks the person who is receiving the explanation: the teacher shows to us how to do something.

Why is nam placed right after Učitelj and not later, like Učitelj pokazuje nam...?

Short pronouns like mi, ti, mu, joj, nam, vam, im are clitics. In standard Croatian, clitics usually go in second position in the clause, right after the first stressed word or phrase.

Neutral word order: Učitelj nam pokazuje...
Učitelj pokazuje nam... sounds incorrect or at least very unnatural in standard Croatian.

If you want to emphasize “to us”, you use the full form nama, which is not bound to second position:

Učitelj nama pokazuje kako vježbati... – Emphasis: to us (as opposed to others).

So nam must appear in the clitic cluster near the beginning of the clause, which is why it directly follows Učitelj.

What exactly is pokazuje (tense and aspect), and how would the meaning change with pokazao je or pokazat će?

pokazuje is 3rd person singular present of pokazivati (imperfective verb).
It can mean both:
- “is showing” (right now, ongoing)
- “shows” (habitual, generally)

Aspect pair:

pokazivati – imperfective (ongoing/repeated action)
pokazati – perfective (completed, one-time action)

Other forms:

pokazao je – he showed (past, completed action)
pokazat će (nam) – he will show (us) (future, completion in future)

In your sentence, Učitelj nam pokazuje... suggests an action that is happening now or is characteristic (e.g. as part of a lesson), not a single finished event in the past.

Can kako vježbati really mean “how to practice”? Is kako + infinitive a normal structure in Croatian?

Yes. kako vježbati here corresponds very well to English “how to practise”.

The structure is:

pokazati/pokazivati nekome kako + infinitive
- Učitelj nam pokazuje kako vježbati... – The teacher is showing us how to practise...

You can also use a finite verb with da:

Učitelj nam pokazuje kako da vježbamo izgovor i pravopis istih riječi.

Both are correct, but:

kako + infinitive often sounds a bit more neutral/instructional (like a manual: how to do X).
kako da + present emphasizes that we are the ones doing the action and can feel slightly more colloquial.

So kako vježbati is a very natural way to say “how to practise”.

What case are izgovor and pravopis in, and why do they look like the dictionary form?

Dictionary form: izgovor (pronunciation), pravopis (spelling, orthography) – both masculine singular.
In the sentence, they are the direct objects of vježbati, so they are in the accusative singular.

For masculine inanimate nouns in Croatian, the accusative singular has the same form as the nominative singular. That’s why they look like the dictionary form:

Nominative sg: izgovor, pravopis
Accusative sg (inanimate): izgovor, pravopis

So vježbati izgovor i pravopis = to practise pronunciation and spelling (accusative objects), even though the form doesn’t change.

Why is it istih riječi and not iste riječi at the end?

The difference is in case and meaning:

iste riječi – nominative or accusative plural, meaning “the same words” (subject or direct object)
- Iste riječi ponavljamo svaki dan. – We repeat the same words every day.
istih riječi – genitive plural, meaning “of the same words”
- izgovor istih riječi – the pronunciation of the same words
- pravopis istih riječi – the spelling of the same words

In your sentence, istih riječi depends on izgovor i pravopis and expresses “of the same words”, so the genitive plural is required: istih riječi, not iste riječi.

What are the base forms of riječi and how do I know it’s genitive plural here, not something else?

Base noun: riječ (word), feminine.

Its forms relevant here:

Nominative singular: riječ
Genitive singular: riječi
Nominative plural: riječi
Genitive plural: riječi

So riječi is ambiguous by itself: it can be genitive singular, nominative plural, or genitive plural. We know which one it is from:

Context: we are talking about pronunciation and spelling of the same words → that calls for a genitive meaning “of”.
The adjective istih, which is in genitive plural, signaling that riječi is also genitive plural: istih riječi.

So in this sentence, riječi = genitive plural, of words.

What is the base form of istih, and why does it look like that here?

Base form: isti = “same” (adjective/pronoun).

Masculine singular nominative: isti
Feminine singular nominative: ista
Neuter singular nominative: isto

In your sentence, istih is:

genitive plural of isti, agreeing with riječi (which is also genitive plural).

The genitive plural form istih is the same for all genders (masc/fem/neut), so it doesn’t by itself tell you the gender. Here, it agrees with riječi, which is feminine, so we have:

istih (genitive plural) + riječi (genitive plural feminine)
→ istih riječi = of the same words.

Why is there no comma before kako in Učitelj nam pokazuje kako vježbati izgovor i pravopis istih riječi?

In Croatian, you usually do not put a comma before kako when it introduces a clause that functions as a direct object/complement of the verb, similar to English “how to…” / “how …”:

Učitelj nam pokazuje kako vježbati... – no comma
Objasnio mi je kako to funkcionira. – no comma

You would normally use a comma when the kako-clause is more like an additional comment, comparison, or parenthetical expression. Here, kako vježbati izgovor i pravopis istih riječi is an essential complement to pokazuje (shows us what?), so no comma is used.