Learn to recognise and use feminine nouns in nominative and accusative case.
The accusative case is used when an object or a person (a noun) is directly receiving the action or is the object of an action.
For example "Jaz vidim avto" (I see a car) - the object "car" is receiving the action of "seeing".
We can help determine the case by using the following questions:
Case | Helper Question | Example |
Nominative | Who or what (is here)? | Mama je tu. (Mother is here) |
Genitive | Who or what (is not here)? | Mame ni tu. (Mother is not here) |
Dative | To whom or to what (do we give)? | Mami dam darilo. (I give gift to mother.) |
Accusative | Whom or what (do we see)? | Jaz vidim mamo. (I see mother) |
Locative | Next to whom or what (is)? | Pri mami je otrok. (The child is with the mother.) |
Instrumental | With whom or with what (is)? | Z mamo je oče. |
Further examples of when accusative is used:
Helper question | Example | Translation |
Whom or what do I see? | Vidim pomarančo. | I see an orange. |
What do I eat? | Jem večerjo. | I'm eating dinner. |
What do I read? | Berem knjigo. | I'm reading a book. |
What do I have? | Imam sestro. | I have a sister. |
Most feminine nouns which end with -a in nominative are declensed by using 1st feminine noun declension paradigm.
Here are some examples:
Nominative | Accusative | Translation | Notes |
mama | mamo | mother | |
sestra | sestro | sister | |
zelenjava | zelenjavo | vegetables | zelenjava is singular noun in Slovenian |
knjiga | knjigo | book | |
miza | mizo | table | |
soba | sobo | room | |
teta | teto | aunt | |
kava | kavo | coffee | |
banana | banano | banana |