Ja sam, Vi ste, moj ključ

Use ja sam (I am), ti si (you are, familiar), on · ona je (he/she is). With adults and staff, use polite Vi ste. Polite Vi takes plural verb forms even when speaking to one person.

A noun has grammatical gender: masculine susjed, feminine susjeda, neuter ime. An adjective agrees with its noun. A male learner is novi susjed, a female learner nova susjeda. Croatian has no article like English a/the.

A case is a form showing the job of a noun. The nominative names a person or thing. Learn Evo Vašeg ključa as a whole: evo introduces a genitive form. Dobra večer, hvala, and drago mi je are greeting and courtesy chunks.

A pronoun names a person or thing in place of its noun: ja, ti, on, ona. Singular means one; plural means more than one. Polite Vi still takes plural grammatical agreement.

Imam, nemam, gladan/gladna

Imam, imaš, ima mean I/you/he or she have. The negatives are nemam, nemaš, nema. After imati, the object uses the accusative. Inanimate masculine ključ keeps its form; feminine kava becomes kavu.

For not be, use nisam, nisi, nije: Nisam gladan · gladna. The adjective changes with the learner’s sex, not the verb sam. Miki is mačak, a male cat; mačka can name a female cat or cats generically.

Questions can use intonation or li after the verb: Imaš li ključ? Ask a person with tko?, a thing with što?. Gdje? asks where. Nema means there is no, and takes a genitive: nema ključa.

Kavu, čaj, Vaš kolač

The accusative names the direct object. Masculine inanimate čaj stays čaj; feminine kava becomes kavu. Say Kavu, molim or Čaj, molim as complete ordering phrases.

A possessive agrees with the thing: moj kolač, moja kava, moje ime. Polite your is Vaš · Vaša · Vaše, familiar your tvoj · tvoja · tvoje. Neither changes according to the owner’s sex.

Drago mi je means nice to meet you and is a useful dative-pronoun chunk. Sviđa mi se means I like it; Dobar tek wishes someone a good meal. Treat these as complete phrases here.

Živim, sviram, želim

Verbs have person endings. Živim · živiš · živi say I/you/he or she live; sviram · sviraš · svira say play an instrument. Subject pronouns can be left out because the ending helps identify the person.

Želim spavati means I want to sleep. Spavati is the infinitive, the dictionary form without person marking. Možeš li svirati sutra? is a useful request chunk before the full modal lesson.

The present tense can describe now or a routine. Ne negates most verbs: ne spavam. Present be is special: nisam · nisi · nije. Learn Živim dolje and Laku noć as simple everyday phrases.

Gdje, noću, tko živi

Gdje? asks a fixed location; kamo? a destination. Use ovdje · tamo and gore · dolje. Learn location chunks u kući, u kafiću, iznad kafića. A preposition connects a noun to a place or relation.

Some names have an address form, the vocative: Mira → Miro, baka → bako. Gospođo Miro respectfully addresses Mira. Other case forms of names appear in possession: od Mire, from Mira.

Noću means at night and danju in the daytime. Svaki dan means every day. A question with li follows the verb: Živi li Lana ovdje?. Singular/plural refer to number, not the speaker’s sex.