Danas sam preskočila doručak, pa sam brzo ogladnjela.

Sam is the 1st person singular present of biti (to be) and it is used as an auxiliary to form the perfect tense in Croatian.

So:

• sam preskočila = I skipped
• sam ogladnjela = I got hungry / became hungry

The pattern is:

• auxiliary + past participle

For a female speaker:

• ja sam preskočila
• ja sam ogladnjela

For a male speaker:

• ja sam preskočio
• ja sam ogladnio

Croatian often uses this structure where English would just use a simple past form.

The ending -la shows that the speaker is female.

In Croatian, the past participle agrees with the subject in gender and number.

Here are the singular forms:

• masculine: preskočio, ogladnio
• feminine: preskočila, ogladnjela
• neuter: preskočilo, ogladnjelo

So this sentence was said by a woman or girl.

Yes. Croatian often omits subject pronouns when they are already clear from the verb form.

In:

• sam preskočila
• sam ogladnjela

the auxiliary sam already tells you it is 1st person singular (I), so ja is not necessary.

You could say:

• Danas sam preskočila doručak, pa sam brzo ogladnjela.

or, with extra emphasis:

• Danas sam ja preskočila doručak, pa sam ja brzo ogladnjela.

But the version without ja is more natural in ordinary speech.

Croatian has a rule that short unstressed words called clitics often go in the second position of a clause. The auxiliary sam is one of these clitics.

So:

• Danas sam preskočila doručak.

is natural because sam comes right after the first element Danas.

In the second clause:

• pa sam brzo ogladnjela

again, sam comes right after pa, which counts as the first element of that clause.

This second-position behavior is very common with:

• sam, si, je, smo, ste, su
• short pronouns like ga, ju, mi, ti etc.

Because the sentence has two clauses, and each clause needs its own verb structure.

Clause 1:

• Danas sam preskočila doručak

Clause 2:

• pa sam brzo ogladnjela

The second clause also needs the auxiliary sam to make the perfect tense. Without it, the sentence would sound incomplete or wrong in standard Croatian.

So the repetition is normal and necessary.

Here pa means something like:

• so
• and so
• therefore
• then

It links the two ideas:

• I skipped breakfast
• so I got hungry quickly

In everyday Croatian, pa is very common and flexible. Depending on context, it can mean and, so, then, or just serve as a natural connector in speech.

In this sentence, so is probably the best match.

Doručak is in the accusative singular, because it is the direct object of preskočiti (to skip).

The dictionary form is:

• doručak = breakfast

For this noun, the accusative singular is the same in form:

• preskočiti doručak = to skip breakfast

So although the form looks unchanged, its grammatical role is object here.

Ogladnjela means became hungry / got hungry, not simply was hungry.

It comes from the verb ogladnjeti, which expresses a change of state:

• from not hungry
• to hungry

So:

• brzo sam ogladnjela = I got hungry quickly

If you want to say I was hungry, Croatian would more naturally use:

• bila sam gladna = I was hungry

That is a different idea.

Here brzo means quickly.

It modifies the verb ogladnjela:

• brzo ogladnjela = got hungry quickly

In context, English might translate it as:

• I quickly got hungry
• I got hungry soon

Both can work depending on style, but the core meaning is that hunger came after a short time.

Yes, Croatian word order is fairly flexible, but the emphasis changes.

The original:

• Danas sam preskočila doručak, pa sam brzo ogladnjela.

sounds natural and neutral.

Other possibilities include:

• Danas sam brzo ogladnjela.
  Neutral: today, I got hungry quickly.

• Brzo sam ogladnjela.
  More emphasis on quickly.

• Oglednjela sam brzo is much less natural in this context.

Even with flexible word order, the clitic sam still tends to stay in second position in its clause.

Yes. Preskočila comes from preskočiti.

Literally, preskočiti can mean:

• to jump over

But it also commonly means:

• to skip
• to miss out
• to leave out

So:

• preskočiti doručak = to skip breakfast
• preskočiti lekciju = to skip a lesson
• preskočiti red = to skip the line / jump the queue

This is a very normal and common use of the verb.

The sentence is in the perfect tense.

You can see it in both verbs:

• sam preskočila
• sam ogladnjela

This tense is very commonly used in Croatian for completed past events, and in many contexts it corresponds to the English simple past:

• I skipped
• I got hungry

So even though Croatian uses an auxiliary plus participle, the natural English translation is often just the simple past.

The comma separates two connected clauses:

• Danas sam preskočila doručak
• pa sam brzo ogladnjela

In Croatian, a comma is commonly used before pa when it connects clauses like this, especially when the second clause expresses a consequence or next event.

So the punctuation helps show the structure:

• first action
• then its result

That is why the comma is natural here.