# BCS: Motion to a person/towards a destination



## Tassos

This is my second thread on the differences between the standards concerning motion and destination.
Here we have:

to a person: *k(a) + dative or dative* for Croatian vs *do + genitive* for Bosnian and Serbian

Examples:
Idi ka Goranu, i odnesi mu knjigu. (C - Go to Goran and take him the book) 
Odi Goranu, i odnesi mu knigu. (C the same)
vs
Idi do Vesne, i odnesi joj knjigu (B and S - Go to Vesna and take her the book)

towards a destination: *prema + dative* for Croatian vs *prema or k(a) + dative* for Bosnian and Serbian

not that big a difference, it just means that while in Croatian you say
Ova cesta ide prema Zagrebu 
in Bonian and Serbian you can also say
Ovaj put ide ka Beogradu

Thanx again


----------



## DenisBiH

Tassos said:


> Odi Goranu i odnesi mu knjigu. (C the same)




I don't feel the above sentence as a Croatism, it would be perfectly ok for me. In certain situations I would also use _kod _instead of _do_, but I think you know which situations (going to someone's home, office, to a place where someone is standing/sitting etc.); I'm not sure whether the sentence below is legal in literary Bosnian but it sounds ok to me:

_Odi kod Vesne i odnesi joj knjigu._


----------



## Brainiac

> Idi ka Goranu, i odnesi mu knjigu. (C - Go to Goran and take him the book)
> Odi Goranu, i odnesi mu knigu. (C the same)


This would be:
Odnesi knjigu Goranu. (in spoken language, the shorter the better )

_Idi ka Goran _sounds like Goran is somewhere there, you see him, and, say, you send a child to go to him. _Idi kod Gorana!
_In your context, I would say: Svrati do Gorana i odnesi mu knjigu. (At least, this is more common than _Idi do Gorana_)
(bring him the book, not take him the book, I guess)



> Ova cesta ide prema Zagrebu
> Ovaj put ide ka Beogradu



It's more common: Ovaj put vodi do Beograda.
Put vodi kroz šumu.

It's strange a bit (but not impossible) to say that _put ide_, rather_ put vodi._


----------



## Duya

I sense a rather strong difference between _k_ and _ka_, in all variants (unlike _s-sa). Ka_ is synonymous with _prema_ ('towards') and denotes a direction. _K_ means 'to someone's home'. Thus, _idem k doktoru_ means that I go to see a doctor, but _ka_ would mean that I walk towards the doctor.Now, _k_ is still used only in formal Croatian, and considered archaic in B and S. Instead, plain _doktoru_ is used (C), or _kod doktora_ (B and S).


----------



## DenisBiH

Duya said:


> I sense a rather strong difference between _k_ and _ka_, in all variants (unlike _s-sa). Ka_ is synonymous with _prema_ ('towards') and denotes a direction. _K_ means 'to someone's home'. Thus, _idem k doktoru_ means that I go to see a doctor, but _ka_ would mean that I walk towards the doctor.Now, _k_ is still used only in formal Croatian, and considered archaic in B and S. Instead, plain _doktoru_ is used (C), or _kod doktora_ (B and S).




Hm, I hate being a naysayer today , but _Idem doktoru _also sounds ok to my ears; I don't know if it's less common, but it doesn't sound exclusively Croatian/foreign to me.

I do completely agree about the perception of difference between _k_ and _ka_.


----------



## Duya

Actually, you're right, I expressed myself badly. _Idem doktoru_ is fine in both B and S, though maybe less common than _kod doktora_.


----------



## Tassos

Thanx for clarifying the difference between k and ka. When I first saw it I assumed it was the same as with s and sa (in a previous post I think Duya said _k_ it's almost exinct in Serbian and then Brainiac used _ka_ in an example, and I was like, huh???).
So, to summarise: 
 k is used in C for a person's home, 
 ka is used by all as a full synonym of prema for people and destinations
 dative is understood by all for people (though used more in C)
 and kod trumps all of the above for people 

And do, what about do ??


----------



## Brainiac

K kao k se retko čuje u običnom govoru, mislim da je to postalo okamenjeno  u knjigama.

I Tassos, pišem na BCS pošto ga učiš pa je logičnije da ti objašnjavamo na BCS valja  mislim da ne treba da se opterećuješ detaljima. Ne znam koliko dugo učiš BCS i sa kojom svrhom, ali mislim da sve ovo može da se uprosti i uči brže, bez filozofije, iskreno. I ne moraš da se striktno držiš pravila i knjiga, ovo učenje preko pesama, na primer, mi se više dopada i glasam za to. Uči jezik sa ljudima, pa onda iz knjiga, barem ja tako mislim. Živa reč, što bi rekao Sokrat.

Do ide sa genitivom. Idem do koga/čega? Do tebe, do Beograda, do Mike, do Žike, do srca, do šume, do radosti, do zanosa i td. Do svega. Vidiš da je jednostavno.


----------



## Tassos

I’m asking the moderators to bear with me a little, as what I am going to write is _by default_ off-topic.  I’ll try to be as brief as possible.

  @Brainiac
  You make some interesting observations, but you have to keep in mind a couple of things:
    I’m learning BCS on my own, without any kind of outside help.
My native language is a lot like BCS, so I don’t feel the need to ask you the more basic things, like other learners.
Na primer: I KNOW what genitive or accusative is, or how noun and adjective declension works, we also have it in Greek (even more obscure stuff like the dative of affection, I understand it perefectly when you say “Kako si mi ti”, we say the exact same thing). 
    If you think that what I am usually asking is “details”, these “datails”  are what interest me the most. I asked about syntax and in the future I  am going to ask about aspect. These are the things we don’t have in  Greek, these are the things I am going to ask about. And from every  response I get, I learn something (like in the last thread I learned the  difference between k and ka). You may feel that these things are not important, I understand that, but I like to be able to speak a language properly.
Now, about writing in BCS... First, I am learning the language for 8 months only, so my vocabulary is pretty weak. Then, the bad thing about learning the language on my own is that I don't make myself study a lot , so if I try to write something in BCS, either it'll have so many mistakes you'll spend all your time correcing them and not answering my question  or I will have to open all the dictionairies and books and it will take me about 10 mins to write a simple sentence. I understand that english is not the native language for everyone here and that can lead to misunderstandings.

[End of off-topic mode]

For example in my pevious post I asked about do in B and S as opposed to k or dative in C, not about do in general. I mean, do Croats use expressions like do Vesne, do Žike etc or they prefer k and dative?

P.S. [off-topic mode again] Of course, I don't follow book rules and always try to check them and find out how really people talk, that's why I am asking all this stuff. And of course I like "live language", I've watched all the "Ko to tamo peva" scenes on YouTube


----------



## Brainiac

Ok, ja ću opet na srpskom.
Ovo nije off-topic, već vrlo korisna informacija. Sada znam kako i šta želiš da učiš i usmeriću se ka tome. 
Kada kažem "detalji", ne mislim konkretno na taj i taj detalj, već pristup, ceo pristup učenju. Da ne "razbijaš" jezik i još gore da misliš o njemu (sigurno ne sada) već da ga OSETIŠ. Kako teče, kako zvuči i da ne razmišljaš previše, već upijaš. U tom smislu da se ne gubiš u detaljima, jer gubiš celu sliku. Da spontano učiš, a knjige ti neće pobeći 

Drugo, ti nećeš daleko dogurati ako učiš sam, bez ljudi, ja tako mislim. Ako nemaš nikog s kim bi mogao da pričaš jezik, onda nađi. (Valjda nećeš da pričaš sam sa sobom ) A učiti od ljudi je daleko plodnije i zanimljivije no da sediš sam i listaš knjige, zar ne? Ljudi ti ne ginu. 

Filmovi, muzika...


----------



## Tassos

Brainiac said:


> Ok, ja ću opet na srpskom.
> Drugo, ti nećeš daleko dogurati ako učiš sam, bez ljudi, ja tako mislim. Ako nemaš nikog s kim bi mogao da pričaš jezik, onda nađi. (Valjda nećeš da pričaš sam sa sobom ) A učiti od ljudi je daleko plodnije i zanimljivije no da sediš sam i listaš knjige, zar ne? Ljudi ti ne ginu.



Ja to znam.
Ali, i možda izgleda čudno, ja sam naučio italijanski na ovaj način. (bez bilo koga da razgovara)

Just watching TV and listening to songs. I think it's going to be a little more difficult this time...

Ali veruješ mi, ja to ne radim namerno


----------



## Brainiac

Hehehe..... propričao si konačno! 
Ima nekih grešaka, ali neću da in ispravljam (sem ako to tražiš). Pustiću te da pričaš.... i ove greške su vrlo slatke.

Samo što brkaš Č i Ć, a ako znaš italijanski, ne bi trbao da ih mešaš . Čula sam od više Grka da ne razlikuju č i ć, i đ i dž. 
Ali ima puno naših koji ne razlikuju č i ć, ne brini. 

Verujem ti, ništa ne brini.


----------



## Duya

Back to the topic of _do_: as you probably know, its basic meaning is 'up to' a certain point or line:

_Stigli smo do zida._

With persons, and verbs of motion: it is near-synonymous with _kod_:

_Svrati/dođi do/kod mene_

...but it can also be used with places, unlike _kod_:

_Svrati u Srbiju/do Srbije._

In cases above, it may have connotation of briefness or temporariness, compared with other prepositions, i.e. 'come for a short time'. 

Unlike _kod_ it is not possible with verbs of location:

*_Ja sam do druga._ 

but one can hear in colloquial speech in the past:

_Bio sam do druga._ [nakratko]


----------



## Brainiac

Aha, znala sam da ćeš da baneš! Intuicija mi je odlična.....

_Do_ could be _till _as well. Idemo do kraja. We go till the end.
Do - untill : do osam sati - untill 8 o'clock

Dalje... da vidimo...
_Svrati_ almost always goes with _do_. One of the common _svrati u_ I can think of is _Svrati u kafanu_.  Or _Svrati na piće_ (Tassos, don't mix č and ć up here! )

Do indicates where you have to/can/may go or what has to/can/may be reached.


----------

