Croatian/Main Contents/Level 1/Lesson 2

You must know that Croatian is very hard to learn because most of the words can have different forms and then sound like other ones. But you're in for a pleasant surprise.

Croatian is well suited for the Roman alphabet, and its pronunciation is therefore quite easy to master. It does possess noun cases, and the verbs inflect rather liberally, but the learner will get used to these new concepts rather quickly.

Vocabulary and Useful Phrases

English	Croatian
I	Jâ
You (sing.)	Tî
He	Ôn
She	Òna
It	Òno
We	Mî
You (pl.)	Vî
They	Òni (òne, òna)
Good morning	Dobro jutro
Good afternoon	Dobar dan
Good evening	Dobra večer
Good night	Laku noć (Easy night)
Thanks	Hvala
Goodbye (formal)	Zbogom, Doviđenja ('till seeing)
You're welcome	Nema na čemu
Here you are	Izvoli
You're welcome	Molim*
Bye	Bok, Ciao (from Italian)
Dog	Pas
Cat	Mačka
Man	Muškarac
Woman	Žena (also means: wife)
Yes	Da
No	Ne
My name is...	Zovem se..., or Moje ime je...
Water	Voda
Food	Hrana
I love you	Volim te
Next	Sljedeći
Fool	Budala or Glupan
Hello, hi	Zdravo (also means healthy), bok

*"Molim" can also mean "what?" or "please"

The nominative case of Masculine and Feminine nouns

Singular/Jednìna

Masculine nouns in the nominative case usually do not have a fixed ending. Student, Pilot, Profesor are all Masculine nouns.

Feminine nouns have a fixed ending. If the Student is female, the noun would change to Studentica. The fixed ending is ica, or occasionally, just an a is there, like Škola/Plaža.

Neuter nouns end with -o or -e. Neuter nouns can't be changed to Masculine or Feminine usually.

Muški rod (Masculine)	Ženski rod (Feminine)	Srednji rod (Neuter)
Stùdent	Student + ica = Stùdentica	Víno
Pròfesor	Profesor + ica = Profesòrica	Jáje

Plural/Množina

Masculine nouns when plural, add -i onto the end of the word, although if masculine nouns of one syllable ending end with a "hard consonant", -ovi is added instead of -i, like Gradovi (towns). The singular is Grad (towns)

Feminine nouns when plural, replace the -a, and add -e onto the end of the word.

Neuter nouns when plural replace the -o or -e and add -a onto the end of the word. Some nouns insert -en- between the stem and the plural, like ramena (shoulders). Also, some nouns in Neuter only exist in plural form, such as Vrata (door), Novine (newspaper). Finally, some nouns have an irregular plural, meaning they don't always end with -a in plural form, such as Uho (ear) = Uši (ears) or Oko (eye) = Oči (eyes)

Muški rod (Masculine)	Ženski rod (Feminine)	Srednji rod (Neuter)
Student + i = Studenti	Student + ica - a + e = Studentice	Vino - o + a = Vina
Profesor + i = Profesori	Profesor + ica - a + e = Profesorice	Jaje - e + a = Jaja
Pìlōt + i = Piloti	Škôl + a - a + e (Škol + e = Škole)	Ȉme + na = Imena

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