Log inSign up

U drogeriji sam jučer vidjela dobar šampon, ali nisam imala vremena kupiti ga.

U drogeriji sam jučer vidjela dobar šampon, ali nisam imala vremena kupiti ga.
Yesterday I saw a good shampoo in the drugstore, but I didn’t have time to buy it.

Breakdown of U drogeriji sam jučer vidjela dobar šampon, ali nisam imala vremena kupiti ga.

biti
to be
dobar
good
imati
to have
ne
not
u
in
ali
but
vidjeti
to see
jučer
yesterday
kupiti
to buy
vrijeme
time
ga
it
šampon
shampoo
drogerija
drugstore
Elon.io is an online learning platform
We have an entire course teaching Croatian grammar and vocabulary.

Start learning Croatian now

Questions & Answers about U drogeriji sam jučer vidjela dobar šampon, ali nisam imala vremena kupiti ga.

Why is it U drogeriji and not U drogeriju?

Because u changes case depending on meaning:

  • u + locative = location (being somewhere): u drogeriji = in the drugstore
  • u + accusative = motion/direction (going into somewhere): u drogeriju = into the drugstore

Here the sentence describes where you saw the shampoo, not movement, so locative is used.

What exactly does drogerija mean in Croatian? Is it the same as an English “drugstore”?

Drogerija usually means a shop selling toiletries, cosmetics, cleaning products, and personal care items (e.g., shampoo, deodorant, detergent). It’s closer to drugstore/chemist in the “personal care” sense, but it’s often not primarily a pharmacy. A pharmacy is typically ljekarna (or apoteka in some regions).

Why is the verb split into sam vidjela? What is sam?

This is the Croatian past tense formed with:

  • present tense of biti (to be) as an auxiliary: sam = I am
  • the past participle: vidjela = seen/saw (feminine singular)

So sam vidjela literally corresponds to “I have seen,” but it’s the normal way to say “I saw.”

Does vidjela tell me anything about the speaker?

Yes. Vidjela is feminine singular. A male speaker would say:

  • U drogeriji sam jučer vidio dobar šampon…

Similarly, imala is feminine; the masculine form is imao.

Why is sam placed after U drogeriji instead of right after ja (or at the start)?

Croatian has a strong “second-position clitic” tendency: short unstressed words like sam/nisam often come in the second position of the clause (after the first “chunk”).

So U drogeriji sam… is very natural:

  • first chunk: U drogeriji
  • clitic: sam

Other natural options exist, e.g. Jučer sam u drogeriji vidjela…, but sam still tends to be early.

Can I move jučer elsewhere in the sentence?

Yes. Jučer (yesterday) is flexible. Common alternatives:

  • Jučer sam u drogeriji vidjela dobar šampon…
  • U drogeriji sam vidjela dobar šampon jučer… (possible, but often less neutral)

Word order changes the emphasis more than the basic meaning.

Why is it dobar šampon and not dobri or dobro?

Adjectives agree with the noun in gender, number, and case.

  • šampon is masculine singular
  • here it’s the object of vidjeti, so it’s accusative singular
  • masculine accusative (inanimate) looks like nominative: šampon, and the adjective is dobar

So: dobar šampon.

Is šampon in accusative here, and why doesn’t it change form?

Yes, it’s the accusative object of vidjela. For masculine inanimate nouns, accusative singular is the same as nominative singular:

  • nominative: šampon
  • accusative: šampon

(If it were masculine animate, it would usually change, e.g. vidim psa.)

Why does the second part use nisam imala instead of something like “I didn’t have” with a separate “not”?

Croatian negates the auxiliary directly:

  • sam = I am (auxiliary for past)
  • nisam = I am not / I did not (negative auxiliary)

So nisam imala = I didn’t have (feminine speaker). The negation is built into nisam.

Why is it nisam imala vremena (genitive) and not nisam imala vrijeme (accusative)?

Because imati vremena is a fixed/common pattern where vremena is genitive (often described as partitive/genitive of quantity or “lack”):

  • imati vremena = to have time
  • nemati vremena / nisam imala vremena = to not have time

Using vrijeme can exist in other meanings (e.g., “weather” or “time as a concept”), but for “time available,” vremena is the standard choice.

What does kupiti mean here—does it imply a one-time completed action?

Yes. Kupiti is perfective: it focuses on the completed result (to buy (and finish buying)).

If you wanted to emphasize the process/habit, you might use the imperfective kupovati in other contexts. Here, the idea is “I didn’t have time to buy it (at that moment),” so kupiti fits well.

Why is the pronoun ga used, and what does it refer to?

Ga is the accusative form of on (he/it) and is used for masculine (and also neuter in some contexts) direct objects. Here it refers to šampon (masculine):

  • kupiti ga = to buy it (it = the shampoo)

If the noun were feminine (e.g., kremu “cream”), you’d use je: kupiti je.

Why is the pronoun at the end: kupiti ga? Can it go elsewhere?

With an infinitive, kupiti ga is very common and natural.

Croatian object clitics like ga often appear early (second position) in a clause, but inside an infinitive phrase they commonly follow the infinitive:

  • nisam imala vremena kupiti ga (very normal)

You may also see clitics placed earlier in some sentence structures, but this version is straightforward and idiomatic.

Why is there a comma before ali?

Because ali (but) connects two independent clauses:

1) U drogeriji sam jučer vidjela dobar šampon
2) ali nisam imala vremena kupiti ga

In Croatian, a comma is typically used before ali when it links full clauses like this.