Learn Hardcore Croatian: Mašta im pomaže da zamišljaju daleke zvijezde i planete izvan našeg grada. - Imagination helps them imagine distant stars and planets outside our city.

It’s a noun, feminine gender, singular: mašta (Nominative singular).
In this sentence it is the subject:
- Mašta (subject)
- im pomaže (helps them)

You could also say Njihova mašta im pomaže = Their imagination helps them, but it’s not necessary; mašta alone is natural and clear in Croatian.

Why is im used here, and not ih? What does im mean?

Both im and ih are pronouns meaning them, but they are different cases:

im = to them → dative (indirect object)
ih = them → accusative (direct object)

The verb pomoći / pomagati (to help) is used with the dative in Croatian:

(Netko) pomaže kome? → helps whom? → im (to them)

So:

Mašta im pomaže = Imagination helps them (literally: Imagination to-them helps).

Using ih here would be ungrammatical:

✗ Mašta ih pomaže → wrong.

Why is the word order Mašta im pomaže, and not Mašta pomaže im?

im is a clitic (an unstressed short pronoun), and Croatian has a strong rule that most clitics go into second position in the clause.

The first stressed element is Mašta.
The clitic im must come right after that.

So the natural order is:

Mašta im pomaže (correct, normal)
and not
✗ Mašta pomaže im (feels wrong / foreign).

This “second position” rule affects other short words too (like se, ga, je, mi, ti, li).

What does pomaže da zamišljaju mean structurally? Why is there da with a present tense verb?

pomaže da zamišljaju literally is something like helps (so that they) imagine.

pomaže = helps (3rd person singular of pomagati, imperfective)
da zamišljaju is a “da-clause”, often called the da-conjunctive.

In Croatian, after some verbs (like htjeti, željeti, voljeti, nadati se, pomoći/pomagati) you often use:

da
- present tense form of the verb

This roughly corresponds to English to + verb or that they + verb, depending on the case.

So:

Mašta im pomaže da zamišljaju...
≈ Their imagination helps them (to) imagine...
or
≈ Their imagination helps them so that they imagine...

There is no separate subjunctive form in Croatian; da + present fills that role.

Could we say Mašta im pomaže zamišljati daleke zvijezde i planete instead? Is there a difference?

Yes, you can say:

Mašta im pomaže zamišljati daleke zvijezde i planete.

That uses the infinitive zamišljati instead of da zamišljaju.

Difference:

da zamišljaju → slightly more clause-like, a bit more neutral/standard in everyday speech.
zamišljati (infinitive) → a bit more bookish or formal in some contexts, but still correct.

In modern Croatian, da + present is very frequent in everyday speech; the infinitive is fully correct but feels a bit more formal in many regions.

What is the verb zamišljaju exactly? Which form and which verb?

zamišljaju is:

The 3rd person plural, present tense
Of the verb zamišljati = to imagine (imperfective).

Conjugation (present tense):

ja zamišljam – I imagine
ti zamišljaš – you (sg) imagine
on/ona/ono zamišlja – he/she/it imagines
mi zamišljamo – we imagine
vi zamišljate – you (pl) imagine
oni/one/ona zamišljaju – they imagine

Imperfective aspect (zamišljati) suggests an ongoing, repeated, or habitual action, which fits well with “imagination” as a general ability.

Why is daleke used, and what is it agreeing with?

daleke is the adjective form meaning distant / far-away.

It’s in the form:

feminine, plural, accusative (or nominative).

It agrees with the nouns zvijezde and planete:

zvijezde – stars (feminine plural, accusative)
planete – planets (feminine plural, accusative)

Because in Croatian adjectives must match the noun in gender, number, and case, we get:

daleke zvijezde i planete
= distant stars and (distant) planets

Note: in Croatian it’s normal that one adjective in front can apply to both coordinated nouns.

What case are zvijezde and planete in, and why?

Both zvijezde and planete are in the accusative plural.

Reason: They are the direct object of the verb zamišljaju (they imagine what?):

zamišljaju daleke zvijezde i planete

For feminine nouns of this type, nominative plural and accusative plural often look the same in form:

Nominative plural: zvijezde, planete
Accusative plural: zvijezde, planete

So the form doesn’t change, but their function in the sentence is accusative.

Why is it izvan našeg grada and not izvan naš grad or izvan našem gradu?

The preposition izvan (outside, beyond) always takes the genitive case.

izvan koga/čega? → outside of whom/what? → genitive

So we need:

grad (city) → genitive singular: grada
naš (our) → genitive masculine singular: našeg

That gives:

izvan našeg grada = outside our city / beyond our town.

Forms like naš grad or našem gradu are other cases (nominative, dative/locative) and would be wrong after izvan.

Could we drop našeg and just say izvan grada? Does the meaning change?

Yes, you can say:

izvan grada = outside the city / outside town

Adding našeg:

izvan našeg grada = outside our city

The difference is just the possessive meaning (“our”). Grammatically both are fine; the original sentence simply emphasizes that these stars and planets are outside our city.

Why doesn’t Croatian use an article like the or a in this sentence?

Croatian has no articles (no a/an or the).

So:

Mašta can mean imagination, the imagination, or an imagination depending on context.
daleke zvijezde i planete can be understood as distant stars and planets or the distant stars and planets.
našeg grada is explicitly marked as our city, so no article is needed.

Definiteness and indefiniteness are normally inferred from context, not from separate words like articles.