A BRIEF GRAMMAR OUTLINE -

CROATIAN
GENDERS - RODOVI
Croatian nouns are divided into three genders. The masculine, feminine
and neuter gender. To know a noun's gendre is very important because it
affects all the words that are tied to the noun, such as adjectives. Such
thing doesn't exist in English but don't get discouraged. There is a way of
telling what gendre a noun is without memorizing it for each and every
one. A gendre is determined by the noun's ending (with some exceptions).
See the table below.

It's also vital to know that nouns retain their gender in plural. For instance,
the noun 'žene' (women) is of the feminine gender and not neuter which
would be easy to think because the word ends with the letter -e.

Ending Gender
-a Feminine
-e, -o Neuter
-k, -l, -r, -d... (and all other) Masculine

EXAMPLE

Neuter nouns: sunce, dijete, more, drvo, tijelo, oko, jezero.

Feminine nouns: žena, kuća, grana, stolica, knjiga, noga, slika.

Masculine nouns: metak, zvučnik, okvir, krov, toranj, prozor,

medvjed, podložak, prag.

EXERCISE

Determine the gender of the following nouns:

Krov, dolina, papir, staklo, panj, igra, brak, jaje, hitac, iskra, stablo,
ljuljačka, zelje, karton

Krov – roof Jaje – egg

Dolina – valley Hitac- shot
Papir – paper Iskra – spark
Staklo – glass Stablo – tree
Panj – log Ljuljačka – swing
Igra – game Zelje/ kupus - cabbage
Brak – marriage Karton - cardboard

GR AMM AT IC AL C AS ES - PAD EŽI

In Croatian, nouns change form depending on the composition of the
sentence. This is called declension. Declension has been proved the most
difficult to master for people who are learning Croatian. It is very
complicated and time consuming to explain it and because of that we will
use simpler techniques in this course. However, many languages have
noun and pronoun declension including English. In English, though, only
pronoun declension remained through the course of years. Let us start by
explaining all of the seven Croatian grammatical cases. The technique that
is most frequently used in determining grammatical cases (the same
technique is used in Croatian schools when taught to children) is by asking
yourself a question when you are trying to figure out which case a noun
should be in. In Croatian, grammatical cases are called padeži (plural) and
padež (singular).

E XAM PLE

In this example you will be shown how to determine a noun's grammatical

case by using the table below.

Krešimir ide u školu. (Krešimir is going to school.)

The question you will ask yourself here is: “Where is Krešimir going?”. And
the answer is that he's going to school. By looking at the table below you
will see that the question 'where' is used for the Locative case.

The question you

should ask yourself
Grammatical case Example
when determining
the grammatical case
Tko? Što? (Who or Jabuka je fina. (The apple
Nominativ (Nominative)
what?) is delicious.)
Koga? Čega? Čiji? (Who Ovo radim zbog jabuke.
Genitiv (Genitive) or what is missing? (I'm doing this because of
Whose? the apple.)
Komu? Čemu? (Whom
Idem prema jabuci. (I am
Dativ (Dative) or what am I going
going toward the apple.)
toward?)
Koga? Što? (Whom or Ne vidim jabuku. (I don't
Akuzativ (Accusative)
what do you see?) see the apple.)
Vokativ (Vocative) Oj! Ej! (Oi! Hey!) Oj, jabuko! (Oi, apple!)
Gdje? U komu? U čemu? Živim u jabuci. (I live in
Lokativ (Locative)
(Where? In what? ) the apple.)
Trčim s jabukom. (I am
S kime? S čime? (With running with the apple.)
Instrumental
whom or with what?) Trčim s Markom. ( I am
running with Mark)
E XE RC IS E - KEY

Determine the grammatical case of the underlined nouns in the

following sentences:

1. Zvonimir je u svojoj sobi. (Zvonimir is in his room.)

2. Domagoj ide kući biciklom. (Domagoj is going home by
bike.)
3. Hrvatska je pobijedila na nogometnom natjecanju.
(Croatia won the football tournament.)

IMPORTANT:

The common word order is Subject+ Verb + …

Ja sam stigla. – I arrived.

On je odustan. – He is absent.
- this one can also be expressed as “Njega nema.” due to the cases
(genitive case)

Other examples:

Vidim ga. – I can see him. (“I” is expressed in the verb form)

VIDJETI

Ja vidim Mi vidimo
Ti vidiš Vi vidite
On, ona, ono vidi Oni, one, ona (djeca) vide

VERBS
Most common division:

Verbs ending in –ati: spavati, plesati, igrati, plakati, morati, pisati, ...
Verbs ending in –eti: vidjeti, smjeti, ...
Verbs ending in –iti: piti, činiti, raditi, sjediti, braniti, miriti, ...
Verbs ending in –ći: ići, peći,.reći,sjeći, ...

For conjugation, in most cases, you only remove -ti and put
-m -mo
-š -te
-0 -ju

and remove -ći and place

-ćem -ćemo
-ćeš -ćete
-će -ku

Of course there are many many exceptions from that rule.

Plesati - plešem, plešeš...; plakati - plačem, plačeš...; pisati - pišem, pišeš...;
vidjeti - vidim, vidiš...; smjeti - smijem, smiješ...; piti - pijem, piješ...; ići - idem,
ideš...; reći has a conjugation of govoriti - govorim, govoriš...

GR AMM AT IC AL ASP EC TS - GLAG OLSKI VIDOVI

Croatian verbs have two grammatical aspects; the perfective and

imperfective. The perfective aspect depicts an action that has
already been finished or done with. The imperfective aspect depicts
an action that is still going or underway. So, each verb in its
infinitive form can be written in 2 ways; in its perfective and
imperfective aspect. The table below is showing 5 verbs both in
their perfective and imperfective aspects.

Imperfective aspect in
Perfective aspect in infinitive
infinitive
Odtrčati. (Definite action, the running has
Trčati. (To run. - infinite action)
been done with.)
Sjediti. (To sit. - infinite action) Sjesti. (-||-)
Plivati. (To swim. - infinite action) Odplivati. (-||-)
Graditi. (To build. - infinite action) Izgraditi. (-||-)
Popravljati. (To fix/repair/mend. - infinite
Popraviti. (-||-)
action)

GRA M M A TIC AL TENS ES - GL A GOL S KA V REM ENA

In Croatian, there are seven grammatical tenses. They can be divided in two
ways. By the time they take place in and by their complexity. Simple tenses
consist of only 1 word (simple tenses are aorist, imperfect, present) while complex
tenses consist of 2 or even 3 words (complex tenses are pluperfect, perfect, first
future, second future) because they also consist of auxiliary verbs. Also, some
grammatical tenses cannot be formed with both grammatical aspects, they work
with only 1.
 Tense Description Example
An action that has happened
Pluskvamperfekt Mladen je bio ručao. (Mladen
before another action (same
(Pluperfect) had had lunch.)
as English past perfect).
Past tense that is formed
Mladen trčaše. (Mladen was
Imperfekt (Imperfect) only by imperfective verbs.
running.)
An unfinished past tense.
Past tense (not used much
nowadays). It is the same as Mladen odtrčaše. (Mladen
Aorist Perfekt. Can be formed only was running but he finished
with verbs in perfective sometime in the past.)
states.
Main past tense. Can be
Mladen je trčao. (Mladen was
Perfekt (Perfect) formed by both imperfective
running).
and perfective verbs.

Mladen ruča. (Mladen is

Prezent (Present) Present tense.
having lunch.)

Mladen će ručati. (Mladen will

Futur prvi (First future) Future tense.
have lunch.)
Before-future tense. Used in
Ako bude kiša uskoro pala,
expresing a future action
Futur drugi (Second future) suša će prestati. (If rain soon
that will happen before
falls, the drought will end.)
another future action.

EXERCISE

Determine the tenses of the underlined verbs:

1. Jučer sam bio na poslu. (I was at work yesterday.)

2. Rekla je da ga bude nazvala prije nego što će otići kući.
(She said she would call him before she goes home.)
3. Večeram. (I am having dinner.)
4. Rekoh mu. (I told him.)
5. Jučer cijeli dan pecijah peciva. (I was baking rolls the
whole day yesterday.)

- this is the example of very archaic use of a very archaic tense,

you’ll never hear it nowadays.
- You are more likely to hear: Jučer sam cijeli dan pekao/ pekla
peciva.

6. Bio sam kupio novi auto ali mislim da nisam trebao. (I

had bought a new car but I think I shouldn't have bought it.)