PLEASE NOTE: This section is no longer being maintained. For a much more detailed review of Hrvatski Jezik (Croatian Language), please see Daniel Nikolic’s fantastic website: Basic Croatian

Welcome to my Croatian Resources. I decided to write this guide because I wanted to be able to study the language online, however, I could find no real learning examples for this interesting and difficult language available. I have tried to organize this document in a manner that would be conducive of easy learning. It very much throws you into the language using dialogue and mild lessons rather than explaining only the bare mechanics. Or, at least, that’s what I plan for it to do.

Croatian is not an easy language to learn. It is an incredibly inflectional language (see inflection). A person who speaks Croatian alters or conjugates verbs, nouns, and numbers as a function of: seven different grammatical cases, three tenses and three genders. The amount of variation is what makes it interesting and consequently complicated. The alphabet is Latin with only a few additional characters.

Please do take the time to listen to the pronunciation of specific sounds and words.

• Note: I am also a student of the Croatian Language so please notify me if you find any mistakes.
• Note: This entire section is under considerable development.

Ready to start? Click here! Tablica Sadržaja

PLEASE NOTE: This section is no longer being maintained. For a much more detailed review of Hrvatski Jezik (Croatian Language), please see Daniel Nikolic’s fantastic website: Basic Croatian

1. Introduction to Croatian Resources
2. The Croatian Alphabet
3. Croatian Greetings
4. Croatian Numbers
5. Personal Pronouns & Possessive Adjectives
6. Croatian Conjugation Patterns (Present Tense)

PLEASE NOTE: This section is no longer being maintained. For a much more detailed review of Hrvatski Jezik (Croatian Language), please see Daniel Nikolic’s fantastic website: Basic Croatian

Ordinals

Zero

One through Twenty

Intervals and Powers of Ten

With corrections courtesy of: Alex, Tomislav & Daniel Nikolič

PLEASE NOTE: This section is no longer being maintained. For a much more detailed review of Hrvatski Jezik (Croatian Language), please see Daniel Nikolic’s fantastic website: Basic Croatian

Those wonderful things that allow us to speak in the first person and direct our verbal thoughts at ourselves, and others. By definition, a personal pronoun is: A pronoun designating the person speaking (I, me, we, us), the person spoken to (you), or the person or thing spoken about (he, she, it, they, him, her, them).¹

Personal Pronouns

Please note that the verb biti does not conjugate following the common pattern.

biti: to be

	ja	sam	I am
	mi	smo	We are
	ti	si	You are
	vi	ste	You are
	on/ona/ono	je	He/She/It is
	oni/ona/one	su	They are (m,f,n)

Possessive Adjectives

	moj moja moje	m,f,n	Mine
	vaš vaša vaše	m,f,n	Ours
	tvoj tvoja tvoje	m,f,n	Yours (Singular)
	naš naša naše	m,f,n	Yours (Plural)
	njegov njen	m,f	His/Hers
	njihov njihova njihovo	m,f,n	Theirs

“personal pronoun. “The American Heritage” Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition. Houghton Mifflin Company, 2004. Answers.com GuruNet Corp. 27 Jul. 2005. http://www.answers.com/topic/personal-pronoun

PLEASE NOTE: This section is no longer being maintained. For a much more detailed review of Hrvatski Jezik (Croatian Language), please see Daniel Nikolic’s fantastic website: Basic Croatian

While this page should only be used as a reference for now, it is good to understand the most basic patterns of conjugation. When you are trying to say something for yourself this page can be instrumental in forming simple phrases and giving them the right direction. Please note that the type of verb reffers to the second last letter of the verb in it’s first person, personal sense. ja Legend: “m,f,n” stands for Masculine, Feminine, and Nueter. Please note that items are listed respectively

Verbs Ending in “e”

ići: to go

	ja	idem	I am going
	mi	idemo	We are going
	ti	ideš	You are going
	vi	idete	You are going
	on/ona/ono	ide	He/She/It is going
	oni/one/ona	idu	They are going (m,f,n)

Verbs Ending in “i”

misliti: to think

	ja	mislim	I think
	mi	mislimo	We think
	ti	misliš	You think
	vi	mislite	You think
	on/ona/ono	misli	He/She/It thinks
	oni/one/ona	misle	They think (m,f,n)

Verbs Ending in “a”

gledati: to look

	ja	gledam	I look
	mi	gledamo	We look
	ti	gledaš	You look
	vi	gledate	You look
	on/ona/ono	gleda	He/She/It looks
	oni/ona/one	gledaju	They look (m,f,n)

PLEASE NOTE: This section is no longer being maintained. For a much more detailed review of Hrvatski Jezik (Croatian Language), please see Daniel Nikolic’s fantastic website: Basic Croatian

In Croatian, there are many different ways to greet someone. These common greetings are all aligned with the time of day and the purpose of the meeting.

Formal

Informal

• Bog translates directly into “God”. My thought is that it is similar to most sayings like “God be with you”, or “Godspeed”. Regardless, it is an informal yet polite way of saying hello and goodbye.
• zdravo carries with it some political and regional differences. Without going into further detail, I would suggest that you use the word zdravo only in very friendly company.

Formal

Informal

PLEASE NOTE: This section is no longer being maintained. For a much more detailed review of Hrvatski Jezik (Croatian Language), please see Daniel Nikolic’s fantastic website: Basic Croatian

Lucky for us English speakers, the alphabet is incredibly similar. In addition to being similar, the added letters are easy to pronounce.

	A a	The “a” in Jam
	B b	The “B” in Big
	C c	The ‘ts’ in its
	Č č	The “Ch” in Chump
	Ć ć	Mix of “T” in To and “Ch” in Chump
	D d	The “D” in Dog
	Dž dž	The “Ja” in Jam
	Đ đ	Mix of “J” in Jam and “D” in Duke
	E e	The “e” of The
	F f	The “F” of Face
	G g	The “G” of Give
	L l	The “L” of Laid
	LJ lj	The “lli” of Milli
	H h	The “h” in hat
	I i	The “ea” in Tea
	J j	The “Y” of Yesterday
	K k	The “C” of Cat
	M m	The “M” of Mother
	N n	The “N” of Nothing
	NJ nj	The “ni” of Onion
	O o	The “O” of Other
	P p	The “P” in Pepper
	R r	The “Ra” of Random, with a rolling sound
	S s	The “S” of Say
	Š š	The “Sh” in Shank
	T t	The “T” of Two
	U u	The “oo” of moo
	V v	The “V” of Vat
	Z z	The “Z” of Zebra
	Ž ž	The “s” of Measure