Word
Možeš li probati juhu i reći mi treba li još soli?
Meaning
Can you taste the soup and tell me if it needs more salt?
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Lesson
Breakdown of Možeš li probati juhu i reći mi treba li još soli?
i
and
moći
to be able to
mi
me (dative short form)
trebati
to need
Questions & Answers about Možeš li probati juhu i reći mi treba li još soli?
Why does the sentence start with Možeš li? What does li do?
Možeš li is a very common way to form a yes/no question in Croatian.
- možeš = you can
- li = a question particle
So Možeš li... ? literally looks like Can you... ?
This pattern is extremely common:
- Možeš li doći? = Can you come?
- Znaš li ovo? = Do you know this?
- Imaš li vremena? = Do you have time?
A useful thing to notice is that li usually comes right after the verb.
Why isn’t it Ti možeš li...?
Because Croatian usually does not use subject pronouns unless they are needed for emphasis or contrast.
The ending -eš in možeš already tells you the subject is you (singular), so ti is normally omitted.
- Možeš li probati juhu? = normal
- Ti možeš li probati juhu? = unusual in neutral speech
You might use ti only for emphasis, for example:
- Možeš li ti probati juhu? = Can you try the soup?
(maybe as opposed to someone else)
What exactly does probati mean here? Does it mean or ?