| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| Ana is washing her face | Ana pere lice In English you have certain words that require a subject (The thing in a sentence the action is being done to) because without it, the sentence is left ambiguous. If you were to just say 'Ana is holding', the sentence would sound weird because it doesn't nearly have enough information, What is Ana holding? You cant hold nothing so there needs to be a subject. In Serbo-Croatian there are significantly more verbs that require a subject: brijati (shave), buditi (awaken), oblačiti (put on clothes), prati (wash)... |
| He is washing a shirt | On pere majcu |
| Ana is washing (herself) | Ana se pere If the person or thing in the sentence is doing an action that requires a subject, then the particle 'se' is used, it means 'self' and isn't pronoun specific (myself, yourself, himself, herself, itself, ourselves, yourselves, themselves) |
| I'm shaving | Brijem se |
| I'm not shaving | Ne brijem se |
| I almost never shave | Skoro nikad se ne brijem Skoro se nikad ne brijem (also correct) |
| Ana is dressing | Ana se oblači Oblačiti se - to dress |
| I'm waking up | Budim se buditi se - to wake up |
| She's returning a book | Ona vraća knjigu |
| She is returning | Ona se vraća vraćati se - to return |
| My name is Ege | Zovem se Ege Zvati se - to be named |
| I'm having fun | Zabavljam se zabavljati se - to entertain |
| The window opens | Prozor se otvara If something is being done to the word in a sentence without anything or anyone doing it being mentioned, then you also use 'se'. Literally translated the example sentence would be 'The window opens itself' |
| The soup is cooking | Supa se kuha Kuhati se - to cook (the soup is cooking itself) |
| The meat is cooking | Meso se peče Btw even though something is technically being done to the subject you don't change it to accusative, this is because its taking the role of the action doer |
| He's playing | On se igra |
| We are laughing | Smijemo se Smijati se - to laugh |
| I'm not having fun | Ne zabavljam se |
| You shave every day | briješ se svaki dan |
| The soup is cooling | Supa se hladi |