Divehi to Croatian: comparisons can change the adjective rather than add more
The comparison standard is not a recipient
Gnanadesikan describes Divehi vure as a comparative expression taking a dative complement. Her example compares size with a house. The house provides the standard against which something else is judged; it is not receiving a larger item simply because its form belongs to the dative case.
For Croatian translation, establish both sides of the comparison before deciding how to express the relationship. A source phrase meaning larger than the house must not become a statement about giving something large to the house or its owner. Case terminology is not a substitute for identifying the comparison’s actual role.
The same Divehi discussion illustrates a monetary quantity exceeding a threshold. That comparison has to preserve the direction of the inequality as well as the amount. An exact number with the wrong more-than or less-than relationship still changes the source claim, even where every currency noun is correctly translated.
A Croatian comparative can have an unfamiliar stem
Fritz notes that Divehi does not form adjective comparisons through suffixes corresponding to an inflected comparative. Croatian’s official school grammar instead presents changes such as velik, veći and najveći, and dobar, bolji and najbolji. The comparative or superlative can therefore look quite different from the ordinary target adjective.
If a Divehi text calls one solution better than another, a Croatian form related to bolji is not a substitution of an unrelated quality merely because it does not resemble dobar closely. The target has its own established comparative form. Requiring a separate word for more in every translation would reproduce a source strategy rather than the Croatian pattern documented by the grammar.
The grammar also distinguishes the comparative from the superlative. Being better than one alternative does not automatically make an option the best among all alternatives. Preserve the comparison set: a two-item contrast and an unrestricted claim of superiority are different assertions. A stronger target adjective would overstate a limited Divehi comparison.
Good can also be a specific school grade
The Croatian Institute’s Mrežnik dictionary records dobar both as an ordinary positive description and as the school grade numbered three. Its vrlo dobar entry identifies the grade numbered four. These are conventional target labels, not automatic conversions of any Divehi praise into Croatian grading categories.
A Divehi school report describing an assessment as good may be evaluating quality in ordinary language, or it may reproduce a particular grading label from its own system. Establish which function the source has before using a Croatian expression that readers could understand as a numbered grade. A general compliment must not silently become a score.
The reverse caution applies within a comparative passage: improving from one result to another is not necessarily a change between those named Croatian grade categories. Keep qualitative comparison, numerical threshold and institutional label distinct. Croatian adjective forms can preserve each meaning, but their familiar everyday appearance does not decide which meaning the Divehi source intended.
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