Za roštilj nam treba još ugljena.

to need

Breakdown of Za roštilj nam treba još ugljena.

• nam: us (dative short form)
• još: more
• za: for

Questions & Answers about Za roštilj nam treba još ugljena.

What is the literal structure of Za roštilj nam treba još ugljena?

A very literal breakdown is:

• za roštilj = for the barbecue / for grilling
• nam = to us
• treba = is needed / is necessary
• još ugljena = more charcoal

So the sentence is built more like:

For the barbecue, to us, more charcoal is needed.

Natural English is simply:

We need more charcoal for the barbecue.

Why is za used here, and what case is roštilj in?

Za here means for.

After za, Croatian usually uses the accusative case. So roštilj is in the accusative singular.

Because roštilj is a masculine inanimate noun, its nominative and accusative singular are the same:

• nominative: roštilj
• accusative: roštilj

So even though the form does not change, the case is still accusative because of za.

What exactly does roštilj mean here?