Adverbial Participle -ći

Doing Two Things Together

Level 5

Forms such as čitajući and hodajući add an action occurring alongside the main event. They do not themselves mark person or tense.

How It Works

For an imperfective verb, add -ći to the third-person plural present form: čitaju → čitajući, pišu → pišući, govore → govoreći. Learn irregular present stems before building this form.

The verbal adverb stays unchanged when the subject changes gender or number. The finite main verb supplies the tense: hodajući, razgovarali smo is a past sentence with overlapping actions.

The understood actor should match the main-clause subject in this participant-oriented construction. When two different people perform the actions, a finite clause with dok is clearer. A word that has become an adjective, such as a lexicalized form in a noun phrase, follows a different pattern.

Examples (3)

  1. Čitajući poruku, Ana se nasmijala.

    Reading the message, Ana smiled.

  2. Hodajući prema školi, razgovarali smo o ispitu.

    While walking towards school, we talked about the exam.

  3. Petra je pripremala večeru slušajući radio.

    Petra prepared dinner while listening to the radio.

How It Connects

Tap a pattern to see what it builds on and what it leads to.

Adverbial Participle -ćiLevel 5Doing Two Things Together

Learn This First

A simultaneous verbal adverb shares the main clause’s subject and an imperfective viewpoint.