Djevojčica je preskočila lokvu, ali joj je kabanica svejedno ostala mokra.

Djevojčica means girl (often little girl or young girl).

In this sentence, it is:

• feminine
• singular
• nominative case

It is nominative because it is the subject of the first clause: the girl is the one doing the action of jumping.

The ending -ica is a common noun ending and often gives a slightly smaller or more affectionate sense, so djevojčica is more like little girl than the more general djevojka.

Je preskočila is the perfect tense, which is very commonly used in Croatian for past actions.

It is built with:

• the auxiliary verb je = is/has (here functioning as a past-tense helper)
• the past participle preskočila

So:

• je preskočila = jumped / has jumped over

In everyday Croatian, this is the normal way to express a completed past action.

The form preskočila agrees with the subject djevojčica, which is:

• feminine
• singular

In the Croatian past tense, the participle changes according to the gender and number of the subject:

• masculine singular: preskočio
• feminine singular: preskočila
• neuter singular: preskočilo

Because djevojčica is feminine singular, preskočila is required.

Preskočila comes from preskočiti, which means to jump over or to leap over.

Here it implies a completed action: she successfully jumped over the puddle.

This verb is perfective, so it naturally focuses on the whole completed event, not the process. That fits this sentence well, because the point is that she did manage to jump over the puddle.

Lokva means puddle.

Here it appears as lokvu because it is the direct object of preskočila. In Croatian, feminine nouns like lokva usually change from -a to -u in the accusative singular:

• nominative: lokva
• accusative: lokvu

So:

• preskočila lokvu = jumped over the puddle

Ali means but.

It connects the two clauses:

• Djevojčica je preskočila lokvu
• ali joj je kabanica svejedno ostala mokra

So the sentence contrasts expectation and reality:

• she jumped over the puddle,
• but her raincoat still ended up wet.

Joj means to her.

It is the dative singular form of the pronoun ona (she).

In this sentence, Croatian uses a structure that is very natural in the language:

• joj je kabanica ostala mokra

Literally, this is something like:

• to her, the raincoat remained wet

Natural English:

• her raincoat still remained wet
• or simply her raincoat still got/stayed wet

So joj marks the person affected or the possessor.

Croatian very often uses the dative possessor instead of an explicit possessive adjective.

So instead of saying:

• njezina kabanica = her raincoat

it is very natural to say:

• joj je kabanica...

This literally looks like:

• to her, the raincoat...

But in meaning it often corresponds to English her raincoat.

Both are possible, but the dative version is common and idiomatic, especially when talking about something belonging to someone and what happened to it.

This is mainly because joj and je are clitics. Croatian clitics usually go in the second position of their clause.

In the clause:

• ali joj je kabanica svejedno ostala mokra

the clitic group joj je comes very early, after the conjunction ali introduces the clause.

That makes the sentence sound natural and standard.

Other word orders can exist in Croatian, especially for emphasis, but joj je kabanica is the expected neutral order here.

Because the sentence has two clauses, and each clause has its own verb phrase:

1. Djevojčica je preskočila lokvu
2. ali joj je kabanica svejedno ostala mokra

In both clauses, je is the auxiliary used to form the perfect tense.

So this is not repetition by mistake. Each clause needs its own tense marking.

Kabanica means raincoat.

It is:

• feminine
• singular
• nominative here

It is nominative because it is the subject of the second clause:

• kabanica ... ostala mokra
  = the raincoat remained wet

Svejedno here means something like:

• all the same
• anyway
• nevertheless
• still

In this sentence it signals that the result was contrary to what you might expect:

• she jumped over the puddle,
• but her raincoat still ended up wet anyway

So svejedno adds the idea of despite that.

This is the verb ostati plus an adjective:

• ostala = remained / stayed / ended up
• mokra = wet

Together:

• ostala mokra = remained wet / stayed wet

Both words are feminine singular because they agree with kabanica:

• kabanica = feminine singular
• ostala = feminine singular
• mokra = feminine singular

This agreement is very important in Croatian.

Yes, there is a difference.

• bila mokra = was wet
• ostala mokra = remained wet / stayed wet / ended up wet

Ostala mokra emphasizes the resulting state after something happened. It fits the meaning well here, because the sentence contrasts expectation and outcome:

• she avoided the puddle,
• but the raincoat still ended up wet.

So ostala mokra is more expressive and more precise than simply bila mokra.

Because it describes kabanica, and adjectives in Croatian agree with the noun they describe in:

• gender
• number
• case

Since kabanica is:

• feminine
• singular
• nominative

the adjective must also be:

• feminine
• singular
• nominative

So:

• masculine: mokar
• feminine: mokra
• neuter: mokro

Croatian does not usually have articles like English a and the.

So lokvu can mean:

• a puddle
• the puddle

The exact meaning depends on context.

In this sentence alone, English could translate it either way, depending on the situation. Croatian leaves that unstated unless something else in the context makes it clear.

Only partly. A very literal version would be something like:

• The little girl has jumped over the puddle, but to her the raincoat all the same remained wet.

That is not natural English, but it helps show the structure.

A natural English translation would be more like:

• The girl jumped over the puddle, but her raincoat still ended up wet anyway.
• or The girl jumped over the puddle, but her raincoat still stayed wet.

So the Croatian structure and the English structure do not match word for word, especially with joj and svejedno.

A rough pronunciation guide is:

• djevojčica ≈ dyeh-VOY-chee-tsa

A few details:

• dj is a soft sound, somewhat like the beginning of during in some English accents
• j is pronounced like English y
• č sounds like ch in church
• c sounds like ts

So the word is not pronounced the way an English speaker might guess from spelling alone.