Tek što smo upalili roštilj, počela je kiša i svi su potrčali prema autu.

to be

Breakdown of Tek što smo upalili roštilj, počela je kiša i svi su potrčali prema autu.

• i: and
• auto: car
• kiša: rain

Questions & Answers about Tek što smo upalili roštilj, počela je kiša i svi su potrčali prema autu.

What does tek što mean in this sentence?

Here tek što means just after, no sooner than, or just as.

So:

• Tek što smo upalili roštilj...
  = We had just lit the grill... = Just after we lit the grill... = No sooner had we lit the grill...

It gives a strong sense that the next event happened almost immediately.

In this sentence, it emphasizes the bad timing: as soon as the grill was lit, it started raining.

Why is it smo upalili, not upalili smo?

Both word orders can exist in Croatian, but smo is a clitic (a short unstressed word), and clitics usually go in the second position of the clause.

So in:

• Tek što smo upalili roštilj

the opening unit tek što counts as the first element, and then the clitic smo comes right after it.

That is why smo appears before upalili here.

This is very typical Croatian word order:

• Tek što smo došli...
• Kad je stigao...
• Odmah su otišli...

Clitics like sam, si, je, smo, ste, su often appear very early in the sentence or clause.

What tense is smo upalili?