Breakdown of Čim moja sestra dođe kući, odmah će početi da kuva.
moj
my
sestra
sister
hteti
will
kuvati
to cook
Questions & Answers about Čim moja sestra dođe kući, odmah će početi da kuva.
What does čim mean here, and how is it different from kad?
Čim means as soon as. It shows that one action happens immediately after another.
So in this sentence:
Čim moja sestra dođe kući, odmah će početi da kuva.
the idea is:
As soon as my sister gets home, she will immediately start cooking.
Compared with kad:
- kad = when
- čim = as soon as
Čim is more specific and usually suggests very little or no delay between the two actions.
Why is it dođe and not dolazi?
Because after conjunctions like čim, Serbian often uses the present tense form of a perfective verb to refer to a future event.
Here:
- doći = to come / to arrive (perfective)
- dođe = present-tense form of that perfective verb
Even though dođe looks like a present tense, in this kind of sentence it refers to the future:
- Čim moja sestra dođe kući... = As soon as my sister gets home...
Using dolazi would sound wrong here if you mean a single completed arrival in the future, because:
- dolaziti = imperfective, repeated/ongoing coming
- doći = perfective, one completed arrival
Since arriving home is a single completed event, is the natural choice.