# BCS Conditional



## Bosta

I often struggle with the conditional tenses. Can anyone help? I wish to say in Bosnian 

what would you do if he appeared at your door? (talking to a female)

I thought

šta bi ti uradila, kad bi se pojavio na vratima?

I recently read this on a website written by a native speaker of BCS

*Šta bi ste uradili da vam se Rob pojavi na vratima?*


How would you translate that?

Hvala


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## Duya

Both forms are correct and practically identical in meaning (the second uses more polite plural form). I vaguely recall that someone posted a nice summary about BCS conditionals, so I'll try to dig that up...


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## DenisBiH

> I often struggle with the conditional tenses. Can anyone help? I wish to say in Bosnian
> 
> what would you do if he appeared at your door? (talking to a female)
> 
> I thought
> 
> šta bi ti uradila, kad bi se pojavio na vratima?







> I recently read this on a website written by a native speaker of BCS
> 
> *Šta bi ste uradili da vam se Rob pojavi na vratima?*
> 
> 
> How would you translate that?
> 
> Hvala


_What would you (formal or plural) do if Rob appeared at your door? 
_ 
There is a (fairly common) spelling mistake above, it should be _biste_, not _bi ste_. Both your version with conditional (kad bi se pojavio) and the one by the native speaker (da se pojavi) sound ok, but I can't comment more on the theory behind it without consulting a grammar book. I have a feeling that Duya, VelikiMag or someone else may be of more use here.


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## Bosta

Thank you. I wonder if the second native one is more colloquial?


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## Duya

Yep, it was Veliki Mag here:

http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=2096199


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## Bosta

Thanks again. I'll get reading through that.


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## VelikiMag

Bosta said:


> what would you do if he appeared at your door? (talking to a female)
> 
> I thought
> 
> šta bi ti uradila, kad bi se pojavio na vratima?


If you can write this yourself, then you're quite good. But one thing here drew my attention and I would like to share that.

As you probably know, personal pronouns can often be omitted from a sentence, because the subject is determined by auxiliary verb. So, in your sentence word _bi_ tells that it is 3rd person and suffix _pojavio _that it is masculine, therefore it is - he (on).

Quite often, however, you can hear people saying _bi_ for 1st person singular as well, instead of regular _bih_. Or you simply don't hear the last _h_ sound in pronounciation. So if put without context the sentence "_šta bi ti uradila, kad bi se pojavio na vratima?_" could be misunderstood for "_What would you do if *I*_ _showed up at your door?_".
Because of that I think that it would be better here to preserve the personal pronoun and say: _Šta bi ti uradila kad bi se *on* pojavio na vratima?

_Also, having in mind that you were explicit to get Bosnian translation, maybe it would be better to say _što_ instead of_ šta_. Denis can correct me here if I am wrong.

Note that everything I wrote is actually nitpicking, but having seen your profile page I thought you might be interested to know.


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## DenisBiH

VelikiMag said:


> _
> _Also, having in mind that you were explicit to get Bosnian translation, maybe it would be better to say _što_ instead of_ šta_. Denis can correct me here if I am wrong.




While _što_ would be acceptable, _šta_ is preferred. In _Rječnik bosanskog jezika_, Institut za Jezik Sarajevo (2007), both are listed, but _što_ redirects to _šta_.

In the colloquial language, at least in Sarajevo, there is a further difference in meaning, as _što_ is often used as the short form of _zašto_.

_Šta to radiš?_ - What are you doing?
_Što to radiš?_ (coll.)  - Why are you doing that?


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## VelikiMag

DenisBiH said:


> While _što_ would be acceptable, _šta_ is preferred. In _Rječnik bosanskog jezika_, Institut za Jezik Sarajevo (2007), both are listed, but _što_ redirects to _šta_.
> 
> In the colloquial language, at least in Sarajevo, there is a further difference in meaning, as _što_ is often used as the short form of _zašto_.
> 
> _Šta to radiš?_ - What are you doing?
> _Što to radiš?_ (coll.)  - Why are you doing that?


I know exactly what you are talking about. It is the same situation in Serbia, and after living there for some years I forced myself to use _šta._ There was once a situation when I saw my colleague who had just returned from the students restaurant and I asked him: _Što si ručao?_ He made a serious face and answered: _Zato što sam bio gladan._

Back to the dictionary you mentioned, I think it is not correct to fully redirect _što_ to _šta_. While _šta_ is used as an interrogative word in questions, only _što_ can be used in the dependent clause of a sentence. Expressions like _što se tiče, što znači_, etc. are impossible with _šta_. So the two are not always interchangeable, and in my opinion, an additional explanation must follow.


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## DenisBiH

> There was once a situation when I saw my colleague who had just returned from the students restaurant and I asked him: _Što si ručao?_ He made a serious face and answered: _Zato što sam bio gladan._







VelikiMag said:


> Back to the dictionary you mentioned, I think it is not correct to fully redirect _što_ to _šta_. While _šta_ is used as an interrogative word in questions, only _što_ can be used in the dependent clause of a sentence. Expressions like _što se tiče, što znači_, etc. are impossible with _šta_. So the two are not always interchangeable, and in my opinion, an additional explanation must follow.




You are quite right, of course  ; that is unfortunately not the only thing lacking in that particular dictionary.

However, where _što_ as a relative pronoun is concerned, while the standard literary Bosnian does pretty much exclusively use _što _in that sense, in certain vernaculars in B-H _šta_ is used in that role as well. An acquaintance of mine used to use it in that sense often, and it grated on my ears considerably when he did so.


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## Duya

Bosta said:


> Thank you. I wonder if the second native one is more colloquial?



No, both are perfectly OK in everyday speech (modulo intimate singular vs. formal plural).

I don't feel almost any difference, either in meaning or in register, between 

_Da on dođe... _(da+present)

and

_Kad bi on došao... _(kad+conditional)

As Veliki Mag said on the other thread, in certain contexts the second can have connotation of speaker's wishing that the event happens, but that distinction is fairly weak.


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## Bosta

Thanks so much. I've loved reading these replies.

VelikiMag It's wasn't nitpicking, it was really interesting!


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