S kim? – Instrumental case

⚤ Instrumental Case

The most common use of the Instrumental case is when we want to indicate who or what we do things with. In other words, we use the Instrumental case when we want to express that we are:

The basic ending for the Instrumental case for masculine and neuter nouns in the singular is –om (–em if a noun ends in a palatal consonant, such as muž, prijatelj, bratić, polje). The ending for feminine nouns in the singular is also –om. In the plural, the basic ending for masculine and neuter gender is –ima, and for feminine is –ama.

Be careful, masculine nouns that end in –c will also take the ending –em in the singular form (like nouns that end in a palatal consonant). See the example.

✍️ Preposition s/sa

The instrumental case is used with several prepositions, but the most common one is the preposition s (meaning “with”) or its variant sa. The variant sa is used when the following word begins with letters s, š, z, ž or consonant clusters such as ks-, ps-, pš-. Examples when to use the variant sa:

🗣️ Pronunciation

The preposition s is always pronounced as one with the following word, e.g. s tatom /statom/, s mamom /smamom/. However, a word following the preposition s will determine whether a sound is voiceless (for example, s = [s]) or voiced (s = [z]). The preposition s is usually voiceless and pronounced like [s]. However, it turns into the voiced [z] before voiced consonants b–d–g–dž–đ. Listen to these examples:

When the preposition s comes before a word beginning with č–ć, the sounds [s + č] form a sound equivalent to [šč] or [šć].

👨‍💻 Practice

What did we learn?

7.1.2 Zadatak 1: Overview

7.1.2 Zadatak 2: Prijedlog s/sa

Complete the sentences so they are true for you by using the following words: tata, mama, brat, sestra, prijatelj, prijateljica, pas. Be careful, you also need to use a preposition s/sa before the noun.

7.1.2 Zadatak 3: Izgovor

🔊 Listen to and look at the following phrases.  Then choose if the s is pronounced as it is spelled, or if the pronunciation and the spelling are different.

☰ The -ovati /-evati-/ivati verbs

In the previous lesson you encountered this new set of verbs in their infinitive form. So far we have discussed only the -ovati verbs. Here is an example of a verb that has the -ivati ending in its infinitive form (example: dopisivati se).

❗ With the reflexive verb, such as dopisivati se, you need to be careful about word order. The position of the reflexive pronoun se will always be the second word in a sentence. In other words, if you start the sentence with a personal name or a pronoun the reflexive pronoun se will follow immediately after the personal pronoun/name. However, if you omit the personal name or a pronoun, the reflexive pronoun se will follow after the verb. Look at the examples below.