You may remember the lesson in which we discussed many different ways in which only one English word, the word holiday(s), can be translated into Croatian. In this lesson, the situation is quite the opposite. Our focus is on a single Croatian word – tema, and several different ways in which it is translated into English, depending on the context.
We shall first deal with a common mistake of the use of the word tema. It is similar to tema in form and that’s why it is often the first word that comes to mind as the appropriate translation for tema. But the truth is that its meaning and, consequently its usage in English is rather limited. Theme can be used instead of subject when we talk about the main idea in a book, film or speech, e.g. ‘The central theme of her books is the life of women in the wake of the sexual revolution’; or ‘Socially responsible entrepreneurship is a recurrent theme (i.e. a theme that appears repeatedly) in his public speeches’. Theme is also used in expressions like filmska tema, meaning a song or a tune which is played in a film several times. For example, Celine Dion’s My Heart Will Go On is remembered as the theme song / the theme from the film Titanic.
Topic is a subject that people talk or write about, like presidential elections in the US or Croatian mafia issues. It usually refers to something which is important at the time, hence the adjective topical: ‘TV programme Otvoreno deals with topical issues (important subjects, which are of interest at the time)’. Topic is used in the following common expressions:
