Croatian phrasebook
Croatian (hrvatski) is a Slavic language spoken by around 5 million people. It is the official language of Croatia and one of the official languages of Bosnia and Herzegovina. It is also an official regional language in the province of Burgenland in Austria. It has three main dialects: Chakavian, spoken primarily on the islands, along the Croatian coast and in the Lika region, Kajkavian, spoken in northern and northwestern Croatia, and Štokavian, spoken in the rest of Croatia. This phrasebook gives an overview of useful phrases in Standard Croatian.
Croatian belongs to the "synthetic" language group, which means that unlike English and other "analytical" languages, different grammatical aspects are expressed in one word by changing the structure of that word—adding an ending or prefix, modifying the core of the word, etc. In analytical languages such as English, the same is achieved by using separate auxiliary verbs, pronouns or adjectives while the actual word remains unchanged. In Croatian, one word is often sufficient to express what English can achieve only by using multiple words.
PronunciationCroatian uses the Latin alphabet. The spelling of Croatian is largely phonetic so most words are written exactly as they are pronounced. However, there are quite a few exceptions.
Phrase listIn informal use Croatians nearly always refer to the month as the first, second, third, etc, rather than its actual name.
Sources and licences
- Guide text adapted from the Wikivoyage article "Croatian phrasebook" by its contributors, available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Read on Wikivoyage · Contributors · CC BY-SA 4.0