Monosyllabic words always have a falling tone. Words with two or more syllables may also have a falling tone, but with the exception of foreign borrowings and interjections only on the first syllable. However, they may instead have a rising tone, on any syllable but the last.
The final syllable is never stressed. Some loanwords may not have a standard placement of stress. Croatian nouns are marked for gender, number, and case. The three are fused into one ending, as is the case in all Slavic languages.
Croatian verbs agree with their subjects in person and number in the non-past, and in gender and number in the past. They are marked for the following categories:. The neutral word order in Croatian is Subject-Verb-Object.
However, other orders are possible since inflectional endings take care of clearly marking grammatical relations and roles in the sentence.
Word order is principally determined by topic what the sentence is about, or old information and focus new information. Constituents with old information precede constituents with new information, or those that carry the most emphasis.
The differences between Croatian on the one hand and Serbian and Bosnian on the other, are mostly lexical, even though the bulk of the vocabulary comes from a common Slavic stock.
Croatian has preserved more native Slavic words, while Serbian, and to some extent Bosnian, have borrowed more from Russian and Western European languages. For instance, hile Serbian and Bosnian borrowed the names from Western European languages, Croatian uses inherently Slavic words, e.
The original alphabet used by both the Serbs and Croats was Glagolitic. It was created by the monks Cyril and Methodius in the 9th century for Old Church Slavonic, the liturgical language of the time. In the Orthodox areas of Serbia and Bosnia, Glagolitic was replaced by the Cyrillic alphabet in the 12th century.
The Cyrillic alphabet along with the Latin alphabet, which was adopted in Catholic areas was reformed by linguists in the 19th century to create a greater one-to-one correspondence between sounds and letters as well as between the symbols in the Cyrillic and Latin alphabets. The two alphabets map quite well onto each other. Toggle navigation.
Labio- dental. Post- alveolar. Alveo- palatal. Listen » Common phrases in Croatian. Language Difficulty. How difficult is it to learn Croatian? Croatian is considered to be a Category II language in terms of difficulty for speakers of English.
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Nonetheless, the constitution allows the use of minority languages in an official capacity in the municipalities. Before Croatia adopted Croatian as its official language in the 19th century, Latin was the official language. A form of Serbo-Croatian language, which is a blend of Serbian and Croatian, was used in Croatia between and Croatian consists of three dialects, namely Shtokavian, Kajkavian, and Chakavian.
The language uses the Latin alphabet. Serbian is a minority language in Croatia, and is mainly used by Serbs in Croatia. The Serbian language is closely related to Croatian. The language is taught in a few schools, especially in the counties of Osijek-Baranja and Vukovar-Srijem.
Croatians firmly rejected the use of Serbian as the official language through violent protests in However, Croatian laws granted Serbs the right to use their native language for official purposes in areas where they formed a third of the population.
However, not everyone works in tourism and not everyone speaks English fluently. Croatians do learn some level of English in primary school. The location also makes a big difference.
Naturally, English is going to be rare in small villages. I like it that way because it encourages me to speak and practice my Croatian. Best not to assume the tourism hubs in city centers are representative of an entire city or country. The idea that everyone speaks English in Croatia, so much so that you do not need to learn Croatian, is inaccurate.
For starters, it can be rare to find someone at the police station in immigration that will speak English to you. You might be thinking, so why is this a reason to learn Croatian? Sure, you can. However, the longer you are in Croatia, the less acceptable this becomes especially when it comes to your residency.
The police want to know that you are learning Croatian as it is an essential part of your assimilation. Also, it can get cumbersome to find someone to help every time you need to get something done.
There are only so many favors one can ask and the people you are asking for help have lives too. At a certain point, just wanting to live here is not enough. You must show that you respect the language and customs. No need to be fluent, but like I said before, trying goes a long way.
There are two tests that the police require of foreigners. If you want to apply for permanent residency, you may need to take a grammatical language test.
If you want to apply for citizenship, you may need to take the culture and history test, which will also examine your language skills as it will be in hrvatski. Things change all the time and no two situations are alike. An American married to a Croatian may be told by the Makarska police that they are exempt, while another American married to another Croatian in Zagreb may be told they must take the test.
You can read all about my experience with the permanent residency test here. Croatian is not a one-country language. That is the same number of countries that speak German, to put it in perspective. Of course, there is nuance and heavy dialect that shape the language into something unique depending on the city, region, and country, but there is a common language thread that runs through the Balkans.
Find a class, get a tutor, download an app, quit making excuses. Figure out how you learn best and apply it to learning this language. We all learn differently. Next, start speaking. Finally, be patient. Gaining understanding and fluency will not happen overnight. The hardest challenges always have the biggest payoff. Please note: All information provided by Expat in Croatia is only for the purposes of guidance.
It does not constitute legal advice in any form. For legal advice, you must consult with a licensed Croatian lawyer. We can recommend one if you contact us.
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