# Croatian (BCS): Director, Presented by, Children's Choir



## Jenawen22

Hello!

I am making a poster to advertise a joint concert betweeen an American choir and a Croatian choir that will take place this summer in Dubrovnik.  I would like the poster to be completely in Croatian, thus if someone could tell me how to say the following:

*Director* (as in Choir Director)

*Presented by  *(as in Presented by XXX Tours and Dubrovnik Tourism)

*Children's Choir  *(This is for the name of the Croatian Choir, thus it would appear as XXX Children's Choir)

Thank you so much for the help!

Jenn


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## Athaulf

Jenawen22 said:


> I am making a poster to advertise a joint concert betweeen an American choir and a Croatian choir that will take place this summer in Dubrovnik.  I would like the poster to be completely in Croatian, thus if someone could tell me how to say the following:
> 
> *Director* (as in Choir Director)



The word is _ravnatelj_. _Choir Director_ would be _ravnatelj zbora_. 



> *Presented by  *(as in Presented by XXX Tours and Dubrovnik Tourism)


This depends on the context. First, for any adjective in Croatian, you have to use the correct gender (i.e. the suffix of _presented_ will depend on what is being presented). Second, there isn't really a phrase  in Croatian exactly equivalent to "presented by". It would be best if you provided an outline of the whole poster. 



> *Children's Choir  *(This is for the name of the Croatian Choir, thus it would appear as XXX Children's Choir)


The phrase for _children's choir_ is _dječji zbor_. However, depending on what exactly you plan to put instead of "XXX", the word order you mention could easily be incorrect in Croatian! Again, please specify more details if you'd like a reliable answer.


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## Jenawen22

Poster Outline:

Koncert

St. XXX Choral Scholars
Anycity, Delaware, USA
*Dr. John Doe, ravnatelj zbora*

*dječji zbor Luka Sorkcevic*
*Ms. Maja Marusic, ravnatelj zbora*

Kazaliste Marina Drzica

srijedu, 12. Ozujka 2008
19:00

Ulaz slobodan


*** I wanted to put: Presented by Dubrovnik tourism and MY COMPANY but I can just put the logos in the corner so no big deal


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## Athaulf

Here's how I would translate it:


Koncert

Akademski zbor Sv. XXX   _[IMPORTANT -- "XXX" has to be in genitive case!]
_Anycity, Delaware, SAD
Ravnatelj zbora: _[title?]_ John Doe  _[you can skip the title if it's not important]_

Dječji zbor "Luka Sorkočević" _[I'm pretty sure it's him. ]
_Ravnatelj zbora: _[title?] _Maja Marušić

Kazalište Marina Držića
U srijedu, 12. ožujka 2008.
Ulaz slobodan.

Sponzori:

_[list of sponsors and/or their logos]_


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## Jenawen22

Actually I beleive the director for the Dubrovnik choir is female.  I was sent her name as Ms.  How does that change things?


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## Jenawen22

Also I have no idea what you mean by genitive case...

PS Thanks so much for all your help...I speak English, Spanish and Italian but Croatian just makes no sense to me... maybe it should be the next language I learn


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## Athaulf

Jenawen22 said:


> Actually I beleive the director for the Dubrovnik choir is female.  I was sent her name as Ms.  How does that change things?



Excellent observation!  You can use the feminine form _ravnateljica zbora_, but it would also be OK if you leave it in the masculine form. Croatian nouns ending in _-telj_, which mostly denote titles and occupations, usually have both masculine and feminine forms (the feminine suffix being _-teljica_), but their masculine forms are often used as generic. 

Still, if it's a woman, it will probably sound a bit better if you use the feminine form, so you can definitely change it into _ravnateljica zbora_. 



Jenawen22 said:


> Also I have no idea what you mean by genitive case...



Croatian nouns change their endings depending on their role in the sentence. These different forms are known as cases. Suppose we're talking about, say, St. Paul. Now, when you look up _St. Paul_ in an English-Croatian dictionary, you'll find the translation *sv. Pavao*, because dictionaries list nouns only in one case, namely nominative. However, if you want to translate the phrase "St. Paul's Choral Scholars", you have to use another case, called genitive: "Akademski zbor *sv. Pavla*". Again, you'll have to provide the exact name of the saint in question if you want a more specific answer. 

Alternatively, you could also leave the full name of the choir in English, but if the name is descriptive, as it seems to be, it's better to translate it.


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## Tolovaj_Mataj

Athaulf,
a question for you or any other Croat, of course:
in Slovene we use a word _zborovodja_ for an artistic leader of the choir. In my dictionary it is translated as a _choirmaster_, _leader of a choir._ 
Don't you have a similar word?


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## Duya

Tolovaj_Mataj said:


> Athaulf,
> a question for you or any other Croat, of course:
> in Slovene we use a word _zborovodja_ for an artistic leader of the choir. In my dictionary it is translated as a _choirmaster_, _leader of a choir._
> Don't you have a similar word?



For what it's worth, horovođa/хоровођа appears to be the Serbian term. I see that the Croatian union refers to itself as "Hrvatska udruga zborovođa", and "zborovođa" collects a decent number of hits at Croatian websites. 

For example, this page says that "Sadašnji zborovođa i         ravnatelj zbora je A.Z.", implying that the two terms may not exactly be synonymous (although I don't see any difference as a layman).


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## Athaulf

Tolovaj_Mataj said:


> Athaulf,
> a question for you or any other Croat, of course:
> in Slovene we use a word _zborovodja_ for an artistic leader of the choir. In my dictionary it is translated as a _choirmaster_, _leader of a choir._
> Don't you have a similar word?



Yes, as Duya has already noticed, the same word _zborovođa_ exists in Croatian. I'm not sure about its exact difference from _ravnatelj zbora_ either (assuming there is a strictly defined one in the first place -- it seems to me that the terms are usually used interchangeably). However, in ads for concerts in Croatia, it's definitely more common to see the choir leader titled as _ravnatelj zbora_. In fact, what you'll probably see most often is the pattern _"nastup zbora X pod ravnanjem Y"_.


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## Jenawen22

The choir name is *St. Andrew's Choral Scholars*.

How would I translate that?


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## dudasd

It would be nice if you'd precize - is St. Andrew name of a school or of a church? Or it's just a part of their name? I'm giving three suggestions:

if it's a school:
Zbor učenika Škole svetog Andrije

if it's a church:
Zbor učenika Crkve svetog Andrije
or
Zbor učenika Svetog Andrije

and if it's just a part of their name, then it could be:
Učenički zbor „Sveti Andrija“

Also, if "choral" refers to church music, instead of "Zbor" you can write "Crkveni zbor" (like: Crkveni zbor Svetog Andrije).

There are some more options, I guess Athaulf can help better.


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## Jenawen22

Thank you so much for all your help!


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## Athaulf

dudasd said:


> It would be nice if you'd precize - is St. Andrew name of a school or of a church? Or it's just a part of their name? I'm giving three suggestions:
> 
> if it's a school:
> Zbor učenika Škole svetog Andrije
> 
> if it's a church:
> Zbor učenika Crkve svetog Andrije
> or
> Zbor učenika Svetog Andrije
> 
> and if it's just a part of their name, then it could be:
> Učenički zbor „Sveti Andrija“
> 
> Also, if "choral" refers to church music, instead of "Zbor" you can write "Crkveni zbor" (like: Crkveni zbor Svetog Andrije).
> 
> There are some more options, I guess Athaulf can help better.



Actually, "choral scholars" refers to a choir that operates as an official part of an academic institution, and whose members get some sort of official academic recognition for this activity. The name reflects this fact -- they are scholars singing in a choir. While there is no 100% exact Croatian translation for this term, I think that _akademski zbor_ would be by far the closest commonly used term in Croatia. (It literally translates into English as "academic choir".)

At the end of the day, the best solution would probably be to name the choir as:

_Akademski zbor "St Andrew's Choir Scholars"_

That way, you'll describe the choir fairly precisely to the Croatian audience while still keeping its exact English name. 

After all these clarifications, here's my final proposal for what your poster should look like exactly:

*
Koncert

Akademski zbor "St. Andrew's Choral Scholars"
Anycity, Delaware, SAD *_[note that __ in Croatian __it's "SAD", not "USA"!]_*
Ravnatelj zbora: Dr. John Doe

Dječji zbor "Luka Sorkočević"
Ravnateljica zbora: Maja Marušić  *_[unless you'd like to put some academic title like "Dr.", it doesn't make sense to put generic titles like "Ms." here]

_* Kazalište Marina Držića
Srijeda, 12. ožujka 2008.
19:00
Ulaz slobodan.

Sponzori:
* 
_[list of sponsors and/or their logos]


_


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