Cjelina 3: Životni standard
🔗 3 | 2 | Gramatika: Kondicional
Present Conditional
The conditional is used to express wishes, possibilities, opinion, warning, or a question.
| Present Conditional | Example |
|---|---|
| a wish | Jela bih pizzu ili tortu. — I would [like to] eat pizza or cake. |
| a possibility | Mogao bi pasti snijeg danas. — It could snow today. |
| an opinion | Rekao bih da to nije istina. — I would say that is not true. |
| a warning | Ne bi trebao toliko jesti. — You shouldn’t eat that much. |
| a question | Bi li mogao otvoriti prozor? — Could you open the window? |
In today’s lesson, you only learned how to say that you would like to do/have something:
- Želio/Željela bih imati veliku kuću. — I would like to have a big house.
- Želio/Željela bih čitati knjigu. — I would like to read a book.
- Želio/Željela bih pozvati prijatelje na druženje. — I would like to have friends over.
- Želio/Željela bih otići vidjeti izložbu. — I would like to go and visit the exhibition.
Forming the Conditional
When forming the conditional, you need:
- the unstressed aorist of the auxiliary verb “to be”
- active participle of the verb.
Part 1: Verb to be (biti)
You did not, and will not, learn the Aorist at this point. Just briefly – the Aorist indicates a past, completed action. It is primarily formed from perfective verbs. It is rarely used in contemporary spoken Croatian and mainly appears in literature and archaic documents. However, for the purposes of Conditional, you need to know the verb to be in the Aorist:
| singular | plural |
|---|---|
| ja bih | mi bismo |
| ti bi* | vi biste |
| on/ona/ono bi* | oni/one/ona bi* |
* Notice that the form bi remains the same for several subjects
Part 2: Active Participle
Now that you know how to form the verb to be in the aorist form, you also need the active participle of the verb željeti to fully express that you would like something. As you can see, the Croatian equivalent of the English phrase ‘I would like’ is formed using the structure “aorist form of biti + active participle of željeti.” For example, to say “I would like to have a house,” you would say:
| ja | bih | želio / željela | (imati) kuću. |
|---|---|---|---|
| subject (who) | aorist of BITI | active participle of the verb ŽELJETI | |
| ↓ | ↓ | ||
| Agrees with the subject of the sentence. | Here you can put any other verb to create the conditional form. |
Remember – just like past tense, the active participle has to be in the appropriate gender (whoever the subject is). In other words:
- If a male person speaks, he would say:
- Ja bih želio imati veliku kuću.
- If a female person speaks, she would say:
- Ja bih željela imati veliku kuću.
- If a male group speaks, they would say:
- Mi bismo željeli imati veliku kuću.
- If a female group speaks, they would say:
- Mi bismo željele imati veliku kuću.
- If there is a mixed group of male and female friends, they would all say:
- Mi bismo željeli imati veliku kuću.
- As you see, we use the masculine plural form.
| with personal pronoun | without personal pronoun |
|---|---|
| Ja bih želio imati veliku kuću | Želio bih imati veliku kuću. |
| Ja bih se želio preseliti u veliki grad. | Želio bih se preseliti u veliki grad. |
Ja bih želio imati kuću
- In this sentence, ja is explicitly stated to emphasize the subject. This structure is often used for added emphasis, for example, when contrasting with someone else: Ja bih želio imati veliku kuću, a ti bi želio mali stan. (I would like to have a big house, and you would like a small apartment.)
Želio bih imati kuću.
- In this version, Želio bih starts the sentence without explicitly mentioning ja. The subject is still understood because the verb conjugation bih indicates the first person singular (I).
Ja bih se želio preseliti.
- The reflexive particle se of the verb “preseliti se” comes immediately after bih, which is the auxiliary verb. This positioning of se is the standard rule in Croatian for reflexive constructions.
Želio bih se preseliti.
- The reflexive particle se is still placed right after bih, maintaining the standard word order for reflexive verbs in Croatian.
Short statements
You can also use the verb biti on its own, without the active participle. For example:
- Ja bih sladoled. (I would like to have ice cream.)
- Ja bih sok. (I would like to have juice.)
In these sentences, it is necessary to include the personal pronoun (ja). The sentence cannot begin with “bih.”
3.2 Zadatak 1: Kondicional
In each sentence, the verb biti in the aorist is missing. Your task is to write the correct missing form of “biti” in order to create the complete conditional structure and give the sentence a full, logical meaning.
Ja _____ jela pizzu.
- Ja bih jela pizzu.
