Dodji ovdje or ovamo? And 1 or 2 other Qs

[totalcroatia]

I speak Croatian pretty well, although am far from fluent, but one thing I am hearing a lot locally (Hvar) which I am sure is incorrect is

Dodji ovdje (surely this should be dodji ovamo)? A few locals tell me that it is the correct version, others that yes, it is incorrect, but has slipped into dialect. Another lady told me that phrases such as Ja sam u banku are very common, but not among the more educated classes, where ja sam u banci is used.

So my second question is to native speakers of Croatian. I learned English as a native and speak it like a native, but am aware that there are other native speakers (David Beckham, anyone?) who say things like 'we was'. Listening to my two year old naturally say ona je bila and on je bio is great to watch, but at what point do Croatians learn the correct endings for classical Croatian, rather than just dialect? I know Croatian language is taught in the schools, and that is presumably where the written skills are developed, but what about the oral.

And how easy is it to switch from 'proper' Croatian to dialect?

[justapixel]

My daughter will be three in December and speaks Croatian surprisingly well. Of course, her vocabulary is limited, she can't pronounce "r" and she systematically mispronounces a few more complicated words, but generally all those tricky rules, declinations, tenses and whatnots, they all come naturally when she talks. And then... in five to ten years, she'll be surprised and overwhelmed by all these grammar rules that they have to learn at Croatian classes... ;D

Children learn easily and naturally by listening to the people around them, listening to radio, watching TV, etc. At home and kindergarten they will learn the local dialect, but the basis for standard Croatian comes from media. I think, my daughter pronunciation comes dominantly from "Dora the Explorer"

I think 90% of population are perfectly aware of standard Croatian and could speak it almost perfectly, but they will always use the local dialect except in very specific circumstances. OTOH, accent is always very hard to mask.

How easy is to switch dialects? I guess it's extremely easy and it's often done on subconscious level, depending on the person you're talking to.

.

[crojoe]

If you base English speech on David Beckham, then lord help us all. Half the time I can not understand the guy.

[MartinM]

I'm probably not the one to fully answer the question but from my experience:

Ja sam u banci = lokativ case = is correct (location)

Idem u banku = dativ case - "I go to the bank" dativ/"give"

Dođi ovamo = dativ case also - you give yourself

"ovdje" is lokativ, so as far as I know it is not correct to say "dođi ovdje"

Is this how I learnt in Croatian language school.

Switching from dialect to standard Croatian as far as I hear for most Croats is very easy. My wife can speak perfect "štokavski" at work, but at home is it only "čakavski" with a very strong "ikavski" accent.

My wife's nephew, who I have known since he was 4 years old, and who is now 11 had a big problem because at home everybody spoke only in dialect and when he started school and began learning "štokavski" he was reprimanded because he did not stop using dialect.

Very confusing for any children and for a foreigner even more so.... if I start to speak "štokavski" where I live people give me funny looks and they even differentiate between people who speak "domaći" and "hrvatski".

Makes me wonder whether standard Croatian is actually the real language of today's Croats... or if is wasn't just imposed during different times.

[MartinM]

One problem I find is that very few native speakers can actually clearly explain the cases fully to me - "it just is" or "it sounds nice" they just reply. Even my Croatian language teacher had problems with it!

I mean what is the difference between.....

"3 godine" and "5 godina"

[totalcroatia]

Ok, thanks - interesting.

Martin, I never really learned the grammar for Croatian - I spoke pretty fluent Russian before I came here and the basics of the grammar are the same for both langs. In Russian, and so I assume in Croatian, the numbers take the following cases

1 - nominative
2-4 - genitive singular
5+ genitive plural

which probably explains the difference but willing to be corrected by someone who knows the grammar better than me.

I know what you mean about getting a local to explain the grammar to you - very hard (as it is for a native English person to explain English grammar) - my favourite was an explanation of why the 'a' gets lost in the genitive eg

rucak - poslije rucka

When I asked for an explanation, I was told that sometimes Croatians turn the a and the k around, but there was no logic to it...

It's quite amazing listening to my 4 year old who spoke pretty good Croatian before she started kindergarten being transformed into dialect with all the choice swearwords within a month of kindergarten.

[Ribaric]

Doði ovamo is correct. It is dative/locative (same endings) and means "come to here". Ovdje means here is, or here in this place and appears only in the nominative case.

Idem u banku is akusativ (verb of motion) , the lokativ of banka is banci.

The case system allows sentences to be compiled in almost any word order whilst leaving each component clear as to it's meaning as shown by the ending. It also means you don't need many preopositions "of, to, with" because the word ending shows the context. Fans of case languages say that word endings are no more difficult to learn than all the different prepositions and it is a more precise language.

.... is how I understand it.

[MartinM]

Oct 17, 2010 18:53:18 GMT 1 Ribaric said:

Idem u banku is akusativ

Oops, yes, my mistake

[MartinM]

I've uploaded some Croatian language help documents here:

www.vidagents.com/crolangdocs.zip

They're not comprehensive but may be useful

[miki2502989]

everything you here is correct,it is just how it is spoken in that part of croatia.however,the official croatian is taught in schools(although poorly sometimes),but by the time kids come to schools they will have pick up a lot of the dialect they hear from people around them.what can you do,kid are like that