Word
Smirila sam se. Žao mi je što sam te povrijedila.
Meaning
I calmed down. I am sorry that I hurt you.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Breakdown of Smirila sam se. Žao mi je što sam te povrijedila.
biti
to be
te
you (singular, accusative short form)
što
that
smiriti se
to calm down
Questions & Answers about Smirila sam se. Žao mi je što sam te povrijedila.
Why is it smirila and not smirio?
Because the past participle agrees with the speaker’s gender.
- smirila sam se = said by a woman
- smirio sam se = said by a man
Croatian past tense uses:
- a form of biti (sam = I am/have in this tense construction)
- plus the past participle, which changes for gender and number.
So the ending -la shows a feminine speaker.
What exactly is happening in Smirila sam se?
This is the perfect tense of the verb smiriti se.
It is built like this:
- smirila = past participle
- sam = I have / I did auxiliary
- se = reflexive particle
So literally it is something like I calmed myself down, though in natural English it is usually just I calmed down.
What does se mean here?