Breakdown of Ako budeš imao vremena sutra, pošalji mi e-mail.
Questions & Answers about Ako budeš imao vremena sutra, pošalji mi e-mail.
Both can work, but they differ in nuance:
- Ako imaš vremena sutra... literally uses the present tense (imaš), but Croatian often uses the present to talk about the future in time clauses. This sounds very natural and conversational.
- Ako budeš imao vremena sutra... uses future II (often taught as futur II), which is especially common in conditional/time clauses introduced by ako (if) or kad(a) (when). It can sound a bit more explicit/formal and emphasizes “if you end up having time (tomorrow)”.
Budeš imao is future II:
- budeš = present form of biti (to be) used as an auxiliary in future II (2nd person singular)
- imao = past active participle (often called the l-participle) of imati (to have) in masculine singular
So the structure is: biti (present) + l-participle → future II.
The participle agrees with the subject (the person you’re talking to):
- to a man: Ako budeš imao vremena...
- to a woman: Ako budeš imala vremena...
- to multiple people (mixed/masc.): Ako budete imali vremena...
- to multiple people (all female): Ako budete imale vremena...
Only the participle changes (imao/imala/imali/imale); budeš/budete stays the same for the person/number.
Because Croatian commonly uses the expression imati vremena = to have time, where vremena is genitive singular.
- vrijeme is nominative/accusative (time as a general noun)
- after imati in this idiom, Croatian prefers genitive: imam vremena, nema vremena, imaš vremena, etc.
Think of it as “to have (some) time.”
It’s flexible. These are all normal:
- Ako budeš imao vremena sutra, pošalji mi e-mail.
- Ako sutra budeš imao vremena, pošalji mi e-mail.
- Pošalji mi e-mail ako budeš imao vremena sutra.
The meaning stays basically the same; moving sutra can slightly change emphasis.
Because the Ako... clause is a dependent clause placed before the main clause. Croatian punctuation normally separates it with a comma:
- Ako ... , pošalji ...
If you reverse the order, the comma is often omitted:
- Pošalji mi e-mail ako budeš imao vremena sutra. (comma usually not needed)
Yes. Pošalji is the 2nd person singular imperative of poslati (to send, perfective). It’s used for requests/commands like Send me an email.
Related forms:
- informal singular: pošalji
- formal/plural: pošaljite
Because poslati / pošalji focuses on a single completed action: “send (one email)”. slati / šalji is imperfective and would more often suggest repeated/ongoing sending, or a more general instruction:
- Pošalji mi e-mail. = send it (once)
- Šalji mi e-mailove. = send me emails (regularly)
For one concrete email, perfective is the natural choice.
mi means to me and is the dative clitic form of ja (I). Croatian has a set of short pronoun forms (“clitics”) that usually come early in the clause:
- pošalji mi e-mail = send me an email You can also say pošalji e-mail meni, but meni is longer and more emphatic (like “send it to me (not someone else)”).
Yes:
- e-mail / email are both common in practice (spelling varies).
- A more Croatian option is e-poruku (literally e-message).
So you might see:
- Pošalji mi e-mail.
- Pošalji mi email.
- Pošalji mi e-poruku.
All are understandable; e-mail is very common.
Key sounds:
- š = like sh in shoe → pošalji ≈ po-SHAL-yi (the lj is a “soft l” sound)
- lj = a palatal sound, close to the lli in million for many English speakers
- eš at the end of budeš sounds like budeSH (with š = sh)
Stress can vary by dialect, but these consonant sounds are the main hurdle.
It’s close, but it can shift the meaning:
- ...vremena sutra strongly attaches tomorrow to having time (if you have time tomorrow).
- ...e-mail sutra can sound like send the email tomorrow (tomorrow modifies the sending).
So if you mean “if you have time tomorrow,” keeping sutra near vremena is usually clearer.