Danas sam preskočila doručak, pa sam brzo ogladnjela.

Today I skipped breakfast, so I got hungry quickly.

Breakdown of Danas sam preskočila doručak, pa sam brzo ogladnjela.

• biti: to be
• danas: today
• brzo: quickly
• doručak: breakfast

Questions & Answers about Danas sam preskočila doručak, pa sam brzo ogladnjela.

Why is it sam preskočila and sam ogladnjela? What does sam mean here?

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.

Why do preskočila and ogladnjela end in -la?

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.