Moving into the Croatian Accusative Case

Photo by marianne bos on Unsplash

We're continuing our series on learning Croatian through songs. Go celebrate the nominative case if you haven't done so already. 

This week's song is not nearly as well-known as the last one. But what it lacks in popularity, it makes up for in musicality. And we're going to need something to take the sting out of moving into what, at least for me, is the most complicated of the seven Croatian cases - the accusative. 

Song: Noć u dan by Démodé featuring Tina Vukov and Poncije.

My suggestion is that you take a listen before we get into the grammar. Regardless of how much Croatian you know, try to figure out what this song is about. What's the main theme? And see if you can find the fun reference to a 90's NBA dynasty. 

Ok, now that you've listened through once, let's talk about the little word "u" that is used a lot. 

Question: The prepostion "u" is one of the most common words in Croatian. How is it used in the accusative case?

Go ahead and listen to the first minute of the song again. The refrain repeats four times with these words. 

Ti si ko' (kao) stijena u oluji

U srce unosiš san

Kad vidim pogled tvoj, osmjeh taj

Ti moju noć pretvaraš u dan

Now, go ahead and pick out each example of "u". Here they are:

1. u oluji
2. u srce
3. u dan

Let's scratch out u oluji for now. That's the locative case. I'll explain this example below, and we'll come back to the locative later on in the series. But this is why "u" packs such a big punch; along with "na" it exists in several cases, and behaves differently in each. But we're going to keep it as simple as possible and talk about how "u" (said like "oo" as in "too") means "to" or "into" in the accusative. 

Main point: The preposition "u" in the Croatian accusative case means "to" or "into" in English. 

Let's begin with the title; Noć u dan. We have two opposites, night (noć) and day (dan) with our key word in the middle. 

The way it's easiest for me to remember: If the noun following "u" looks like its lexical form, and ends with anything other than an "a", there is movement happening and "u" means "to" or "into".

Here are some common everyday examples:

1. Idem u Zagreb (I'm going to Zagreb)
2. Putujem u Osijek (I'm traveling to Osijek)
3. Vozim u Čakovec (I'm driving to Čakovec)
4. Idem u park (I'm going to the park)
5. Idem u čvornik (I'm going to the hub, čvornik is a brand new Croatian word)

So, you can see that the noun after the preposition "u" doesn't change. Again, that's rare in Croatian! Take advantage of it. 

All five of these examples above are in the accusative case. And they're sentences that you could probably adjust slightly and create others just like them. 

Back to the song. As you can see, no one seems to be driving to Čakovec or traveling to Osijek. So what's happening here?

Let's begin where we left off: Ti moju noć pretvaraš u dan. Now there's another word between "night" and "day", the word pretvaraš which means "you turn (or change) into". So the author is saying "you turn my night into day". That is the theme of the song. 

And if you're a beginner, you can stop right there, listen to the song a few times and try to sing along. When there's movement happening - Idem u Zagreb or Ti moju noć pretvaraš u dan - Zagreb and dan are in the accusative form. When they end in anything other than "a", they are exactly like the nominative form. 

By the way, if you're interested in hearing more from some of the musicians in this song, they've formed various ensembles over the years. October Light is perhaps best known for their song Croatia. The Croatian lyrics sprinkled with English words is very typical. And then there's Scifidelity Orchestra. Here they are covering the theme from the Catina Band in Star Wars on a Croatian morning show. Throughout the time I've lived in Croatia, these guys from near Čakovec have been the source of some of the most creative music I've encountered. 

Now back to the accusative case. What about the other uses of "u" in the chorus? Let's stick with another accusative phrase that fits into what we've already learned: U srce unosiš sanj. The word "srce" (heart) doesn't change from its lexical form. Because of the "u" we know there's movement happening. Unosiš means to bring into. The final noun in that line answers the question of what you bring into (my) heart? A dream (san).

Taking a step back here, we've seen that "u", when there's movement happening between actual places means "to". Then, using the hint from the verbs in both cases, we can finesse "to" into "into". When there's a change taking place "u" means "into":

1. U srce unosiš san (You bring a dream into my heart)
2. Ti moju noć pretvaraš u dan (You turn my night into day)

If you're still with me, let me just emphasize the point I made above. Noun endings in Croatian change ALL THE TIME. So, it's really significant that they don't in these examples. I think that was one of the reasons why I got this down early and why I'm starting with that here. 

So then how does "u oluji" fit into (ha!) all this? 

***WARNING: We're moving into the locative case (Idemo u lokativ). If you want to stop here, we'll come back later. But if you're interested in knowing why this phrase functions this way, I'll explain it briefly.***

Oluja is the lexical form of the word and means "storm". Uh oh. It ends in "a". Nouns that end in "a" change their endings A LOT.

Now, if we were moving into the storm, the sentence would be Idem u oluju. This is still the accusative case. So let's try this with places we mentioned above. 

1. Idem u Rijeku (I'm going to Rijeka)
2. Putujem u Orahovicu (I'm traveling to Orahovica)
3. Vozim u Kukljicu (I'm driving to Kukljica)
4. Idem u Mađarsku (I'm going to Hungary)

But the above phrase isn't idem u oluju but rather Ti si ko (kao) stijena u oluji. The "i" at the end of oluja indicates that we are not in the accusative but rather in the locative case. We are not going into the storm, we are IN the storm. 

So Ti si ko (kao) stijena u oluji means "You are like a rock IN the storm". And now we can move the accusative sentences in which the noun ends in "u" into the locative.

1. Ja sam u Orahovici (I'm in Orahovica)
2. Ja sam u Kukljici (I'm in Kukjlica)

For me, practicing those sentences like this were the key to me figuring out the difference between being IN and going TO a place. Again, movement is shown through accusative. Location is shown through...that's right, the locative. The preposition "u" is used in both cases. But you have to pay attention to the ending to know whether it's accusative or locative. 

That's more than enough for today. Though it's important to keep in mind that we have only scratched the surface of the accusative case. There's so much more to it. But for me, and this is key for the whole series, for me, this was the easiest way to begin to understand what the accusative case does. 

If this is fairly new to you, I'd encourage you to write 5 sentences about where you're going and 5 more about where you are. Here are some suggested nouns to get you started.

1. kuća
2. Split
3. škola
4. Dubrovnik
5. crkva

Let's bring it full circle if you're still with me. If you are writing sentences in the locative and your noun ends in a consonant, then you add "u" to the end of the noun. 

1. Ja sam u Čakovcu. I am in Čakovec.
2. Ti si u Zagrebu. You are in Zagreb.
3. Mi smo u Dubrovniku. We are in Dubrovnik. 
4. Oni su u čvorniku. They are in the hub. 
5. Ona je u Vukovaru. She is in Vukovar.

In the end, this is the way I learned and practiced these kinds of sentences. I hope this is helpful if you're just beginning or want a fun way to review what you've learned. I've got another five or six songs lined up, but if there's a grammar point you're interested in learning with a song, let me know in the comments. I'll be on the lookout.