In many languages, including Croatian, each noun is assigned a gender. This is a slightly misleading term – it simply means what forms of other words you must use whenever you refer to a noun.
For example, in English, when referring to a noun, you must use either he, she or it, depending on the noun, but there’s no difference for most other words.
In German, you must use not only different pronouns, but also different articles (der, die, das) and you have to adapt adjectives (kleiner, kleine, kleines) in some situations.
In Spanish, you have to use different pronouns, different articles (el, la) and different forms of adjectives (rojo, roja).
Since there are three different forms of pronouns in English, and three different forms of articles in German, we can say that English and German have three genders (in singular, there’s no difference in plural). There are two different forms of articles and adjectives in Spanish, therefore Spanish has two genders.
There are four genders in Croatian, but the difference between two of them is very small (and there’s no difference in plural). The gender in Croatian is similar to gender in Spanish: it’s usually assigned according to the last letter of a noun. For instance, kuća house is ‘feminine’ (since it ends in -a) in the same way as Spanish casa!
If you are familiar only with genders in English, this might be a bit surprising. Consider genders simply the way nouns are grouped. Houses are not feminine in real world. The gender that kuća house and sestra sister belong to is called ‘feminine’ simply because a lot of words for really feminine beings (e.g. for woman, sister, daughter) happen to belong to it.
It’s straightforward to tell gender of a noun for almost all nouns in Croatian. The rules are:
| noun ends in | gender | some exceptions |
|---|---|---|
| -a | feminine (f) e.g. riba fish |
tata m Dad Luka m (name) |
| -o or -e | neuter (n) e.g. pivo beer |
auto m car
®
Marko m (name) |
| consonant | masculine (m) e.g. stol table ® |
kost f bone noć f night |
But there are four genders, right? Well, for masculine nouns there’s an additional division. It will be important a bit later.
(In case you’re surprised that one gender is called neuter – that’s a fairly standard name for a gender that’s neither male nor female.)
There are exceptions – e.g. names Luka and Marko look as if feminine and neuter; in fact, both are masculine, and frequent male names. All personal names (for people and animals) are either masculine or feminine (names ending in -o are typically masculine).
Another exception – the noun tata – is actually masculine, it means Dad.
It’s actually only important to remember (and indicate) gender for exceptional nouns, and there are only 50-100 such nouns used in everyday life. For example:
| most bridge | — | masculine as expected, no need to indicate gender |
| kost f bone | — | feminine, contrary to the common rules, so we must indicate its gender (f) |
The biggest group of nouns that have unexpected gender are feminine nouns not ending in -a. Almost all of them end in a consonant. Common ones are:
|
bol
▶
f pain
® bolest ▶ f disease jesen ▶ f fall, autumn kost ▶ f bone krv ▶ f blood ljubav ▶ f love |
noć
▶
f night obitelj ▶ f (close) family ® ponoć ▶ f midnight r sol ▶ f salt ® večer ▶ f evening ® |
To help you with nouns that have unexpected gender, they will be shown in dark blue, and you can get a pop-up with their gender by placing the mouse over them, or by touching them (on touchscreens), for example:
Vidim krvfem.. I see blood.
Vozim automasc.. I’m driving a car.
Gender of words for people normally matches their natural sex (there are some exceptions, though). Consequently, many terms represented by only one noun in English have two nouns in Croatian: one for male and one for female (the same holds in Romance languages like French, Italian or Spanish):
| male | female | |
|---|---|---|
| English | friend | |
| French | ami | amie |
| Spanish | amigo | amiga |
| Croatian | prijatelj | prijateljica |
In Croatian, main words that must adapt to noun gender are adjectives – words that indicate properties like big, red. In Croatian, adjectives also include words like my and Ivan’s. They all must adapt to noun gender and case.
So, what forms of adjectives do we need to use in each gender? In simple sentences like the house is big, nominative forms of adjectives are used, and they are very simple:
| gender | adj. N | example |
|---|---|---|
| feminine | -a | velika riba big fish |
| neuter | -o (some -e) | veliko jezero big lake |
| masculine | optionally -i | velik(i) stol big table ® |
You probably notice that there are two possible endings for the neuter gender. Most adjectives use -o; adjectives that need -e will be shown a bit later. Here’s a list of often used adjectives:
|
brz
▶
fast čist ▶ clean dubok deep dug long gotov ▶ ready, done jak strong jeftin cheap l mali small, little mlad young nov new |
poznat well-known pun full slab weak skup expensive spor slow star old širok wide suh dry ® velik big visok high, tall zdrav healthy, in good health |
We can use them to assemble sentences like these:
Riba je velika. ▶ The fish is big.
Velika riba jedejesti kruh. ▶ The big fish is eating bread.
Sunce nije jako. The sun isn’t strong.
Jezero je duboko. The lake is deep.
Ana je zdrava. Ana is healthy.
Restoran nije skup. The restaurant isn’t expensive.
Visoka je. She’s tall.
You can see that adjectives got an -o regardless of nouns having the final -o or -e: it’s only gender that matters, and both jezero and sunce are neuter.
In Croatian (like in other Slavic and Romance languages) adjectives always adapt to the noun, even if they are not right next to the noun. In German, adjectives in sentences like The fish is big don’t adapt. That’s one detail where Croatian requires words to change and German doesn’t. This makes pronouns mostly redundant, and consequently not used, as in the last sentence, where ona she is implied by the form of the adjective.
Pay attention that in Croatian, kuća house and pizza are also she, so visoka je could be a statement about a house!
It’s possible to put the adjective first in sentences "X is Y", which emphasizes it:
Duboko je jezero. The lake is deep. (really deep)
One more detail is still not answered: adjectives have an optional -i in the masculine gender. It’s not used when you use adjectives on their own, but it’s usually used when an adjective is placed before a noun:
Hrast je star. The oak is old.
Stari hrast još rasterasti. The old oak is still growing.
We have here used the verb rasti (raste) grow; the verb is not used to grow something (i.e. cultivate).
Some adjectives (e.g. mali small, little) have always the -i in masculine, regardless where they’re used, and they’re listed so. Its feminine form is mala and so on.
The adjective gotov is used to express that something is prepared or ready, e.g.:
Ručak je gotov. The dinner is ready.
The adverbs of intensity are also used with adjectives, and must be placed right before them (or fused, in case of pre-):
Riba je jako velika. The fish is very big.
Jezero je dosta duboko. The lake is quite deep.
Restoran nije preskup. The restaurant isn’t too expensive.
Sunce je stvarno jako. The sun is really strong.
Vlak je strašno spor. The train is terribly slow. (colloq.)
The adverb of intensity jako is exactly the same as the neuter form of the adjective jak strong, but its meaning is not equal. More about that in the next chapter.
Don’t forget: nouns and adjectives really don’t have the same endings. And you should always keep in mind that there are couple of nouns having unexpected genders (from their endings, at least):
Tatamasc. je zdrav. Dad is healthy.
Noćfem. je duga. The night is long.
________
® In southern parts of Croatia (i.e. in Dalmatia) and parts of Bosnia-Herzegovina, auto car is very often neuter in colloquial speech, so you’ll sometimes read and hear novo auto.
The noun stol table has the form sto (stol-) in Serbia and most of Bosnia, but it’s still masculine. Consequently, it’s velik(i) sto in Serbia.
The noun bol f pain is almost always masculine in Serbia, and is often understood as masculine in Bosnia as well.
Instead of obitelj, words familija and porodica are common in most of Bosnia and Serbia, and in some parts of Croatia.
The noun sol f salt has the form so (sol-) in Serbia and most of Bosnia; its gender and case endings are the same.
The noun večer f evening has the form veče (večer- f) in Serbia and often in Bosnia, with an additional twist: it’s considered neuter in the nominative case (since it ends in -e), and feminine whenever any ending is attached to it (as indicated by an f after its case-base)! It changes like other feminine nouns not ending in -a.
Instead of suh, suv is used in Serbia, and parts of Bosnia and Croatia (it’s non-standard in Croatia).
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