Questions & Answers about Doći ću rano da bih sakrila poklon.
Why is doći ću written as two words?
Because this is the Serbian future tense: the infinitive doći + the short form of hteti (ću = I will).
With verbs whose infinitive ends in -ći, Serbian normally keeps the two parts separate:
- doći ću = I will come
- naći ću = I will find
- reći ću = I will say
This is different from many -ti infinitives, where the future is often written as one word when the infinitive comes first:
- radiću = I will work
- pisaću = I will write
So doći ću is the correct standard form.
What exactly does da bih mean here?
Da bih introduces a purpose clause. In English, it usually means:
- so that I can
- so that I could
- in order to
So:
- Doći ću rano da bih sakrila poklon. = I’ll come early so that I can hide the gift.
Grammatically, da bih is built from:
- da = that / so that
- bih = the 1st person singular conditional auxiliary
Even though it looks like a conditional form, in this structure it is very commonly used to express purpose, not a real condition.