Breakdown of Brat i sestra su se jučer posvađali, ali su se danas pomirili.
Questions & Answers about Brat i sestra su se jučer posvađali, ali su se danas pomirili.
They are in the Croatian past tense (perfekt).
Structure of the past tense in Croatian:
- auxiliary verb biti (to be) in the present tense
- su = 3rd person plural (oni/one/ona)
- active past participle (glagolski pridjev radni)
- posvađali – from posvađati (se)
- pomirili – from pomiriti (se)
So:
- oni su se posvađali – they quarreled / they had a fight
- oni su se pomirili – they made up / reconciled
English usually has just one word (argued, made up), but Croatian past tense is built from an auxiliary (su) + participle (posvađali, pomirili) + in this case the reflexive se.
In Croatian, when you have a mixed group (male + female), the masculine plural form is used by default.
- brat (brother) – masculine
- sestra (sister) – feminine
→ together: brat i sestra = grammatically masculine plural
So the participles must agree in number and gender with this compound subject:
- Brat i sestra su se jučer posvađali.
- Brat i sestra su se danas pomirili.
Compare:
- Sestre su se jučer posvađale, ali su se danas pomirile.
(all female → feminine plural: posvađale, pomirile)
Se is a reflexive clitic pronoun. Here, it is part of reflexive verbs:
- posvađati se (s nekim) – to quarrel, to have a fight (with someone)
- pomiriti se (s nekim) – to make up, to reconcile (with someone)
In this sentence, se is not optional; it is part of the normal dictionary form of the verbs. Without se, the meaning changes or the sentence becomes incomplete:
- pomiriti nekoga (s nekim) – to reconcile somebody (with somebody)
- Roditelji su pomirili djecu. – The parents reconciled the children.
But here, the brother and sister reconcile themselves / each other, so Croatian uses the reflexive form:
- Brat i sestra su se pomirili.
So se must be there with both verbs to express “they quarreled (with each other)” and “they made up (with each other)”.
Each reflexive verb needs its own se in its own clause.
- First clause: (Brat i sestra) su se jučer posvađali.
- Second clause: (Brat i sestra) su se danas pomirili.
If you say:
- … ali su danas pomirili
this expects an object:
- … ali su danas pomirili prijatelje. – they reconciled their friends
Without se, pomirili means “reconciled (somebody/something)”, not “made up (with each other)”.
So you must repeat se:
- Brat i sestra su se jučer posvađali, ali su se danas pomirili.
You may drop the repeated subject in the second clause:
- Brat i sestra su se jučer posvađali, ali su se danas pomirili.
(Subject is understood; se is not dropped.)
Both su and se are clitics (short unstressed words), and Croatian has strict rules for their order.
- Clitics want to stand in the so‑called second position in the clause.
- When several clitics appear together, their internal order is fixed.
In this combination, the auxiliary su comes before the reflexive se:
- Brat i sestra su se jučer posvađali. – correct
- Brat i sestra se su jučer posvađali. – wrong
- Brat i sestra su jučer se posvađali. – wrong (you can’t split su and se with jučer)
The block su se must stay together, in that order, immediately after the first “host” in the clause (here: Brat i sestra, and after ali in the second clause).
Yes. Jučer and danas are adverbs of time, and Croatian word order allows some flexibility. You just have to keep the clitics (su se) in a correct position.
All of these are possible:
- Brat i sestra su se jučer posvađali, ali su se danas pomirili. – neutral order
- Jučer su se brat i sestra posvađali, ali su se danas pomirili. – emphasizes “yesterday”
- Brat i sestra su se posvađali jučer, ali su se pomirili danas. – adverbs at the end
What you cannot do is violate clitic order or split su and se, for example:
- Brat i sestra su jučer se posvađali. – incorrect
- Jučer brat i sestra su se posvađali. – sounds strange/ungrammatical in standard Croatian; su se wants to be earlier.
In standard Croatian, each clause normally needs its own finite verb (here: its own auxiliary su).
So we have two full clauses:
- Brat i sestra su se jučer posvađali
- (Brat i sestra) su se danas pomirili
→ joined by ali.
If you say:
- … ali se danas pomirili.
then the second clause has no finite verb (se pomirili is only participle + clitic, but no present‑tense auxiliary). That sounds incomplete or dialectal.
In careful/standard language, you repeat the auxiliary:
- … ali su se danas pomirili. – recommended
Because ali connects two independent clauses, each with its own verb:
- Clause 1: Brat i sestra su se jučer posvađali
- Clause 2: (Brat i sestra) su se danas pomirili
In standard Croatian punctuation, when ali (but) joins two clauses like this, you put a comma before it:
- …, ali …
You would not normally omit the comma in this type of sentence.
Both i and a can sometimes be translated as and, but they are used differently:
- i – neutral and, simply adds or lists things
- a – and/but, often marks a contrast or a slight opposition
Here we just have a neutral pair:
- brat i sestra – brother and sister (as one unit)
Using a would suggest some kind of contrast between brat and sestra, which is not intended here and sounds unnatural:
- ?brat a sestra – would feel odd in this role
So the normal, idiomatic form is brat i sestra.
They are in the nominative singular:
- brat – nominative singular masculine
- sestra – nominative singular feminine
Reason: they form the subject of the sentence – the people who performed the actions (quarreled, reconciled). In Croatian, subjects are in the nominative case.
For comparison:
- Vidim brata i sestru. – I see (my) brother and sister.
- brata, sestru are now in the accusative, because they are direct objects, not the subject.
They are:
- active past participles (Croatian: glagolski pridjev radni),
- in the masculine plural form.
From the infinitives:
- posvađati se →
- posvađao (m.sg.), posvađala (f.sg.), posvađali (m.pl./mixed), etc.
- pomiriti se →
- pomirio (m.sg.), pomirila (f.sg.), pomirili (m.pl./mixed), etc.
Combined with the auxiliary biti in the present tense, they make the past tense:
- oni su se posvađali
- oni su se pomirili
This is about aspect (imperfective vs perfective).
- svađati se – imperfective
- to be arguing / to argue (as an ongoing or repeated action)
- focuses on the process
- posvađati se – perfective
- to (end up) having a fight, to quarrel (as a single completed event)
- focuses on the result / completed event
Similarly:
- miriti se – imperfective
- to be making up, to be reconciling
- pomiriti se – perfective
- to (finally) make up, to reconcile (completed)
In the sentence:
- su se jučer posvađali – they (ended up) having a quarrel yesterday (one completed event)
- su se danas pomirili – they (ended up) making up today
If you used imperfective forms, it would suggest a more ongoing or habitual action.
Yes, that sentence is grammatically correct, but the nuance changes.
- su se jučer svađali – they were arguing yesterday (emphasis on the ongoing activity, maybe for some time)
- su se jučer posvađali – they (ended up) having a fight yesterday (focus on the completed event; we think of one quarrel as a whole)
So:
- svađali su se jučer – more about the process of arguing
- posvađali su se jučer – more about the fact that a quarrel happened and was completed
The second part su se danas pomirili keeps the idea that today they finally made up.
Jučer and danas are adverbs of time:
- jučer – yesterday
- danas – today
As adverbs, they are invariable:
- they do not change for case, gender, or number
- you always say jučer, danas, regardless of who you are talking about or what case other words are in
Only their position in the sentence can change (for emphasis, rhythm), but their form stays the same.