Learn Croatian & Serbian languages

Evo što se dogodilo jučer. / Evo šta se desilo juče.

Here’s what happened yesterday.

Jučer sam bila u gradu i videla sam bivšeg šefa, ali on nije video mene.

Yesterday I was in town and I saw my ex-boss but he didn’t see me.

Išla sam u kafić. Naručila sam kavu/kafu s mlijekom/mlekom i sjela/sela za stol/sto.

I went to the cafe. I ordered a coffee with milk and I sat at the table.

Čitala sam knjigu kad me sestra zvala na mobitel:

I was reading a book when my sister called me on mobile phone:

„Jesi li vidjela/Da li si videla šefa? Ušao je u kafić gde si ti.“ – rekla mi je. „Kako znaš?“ 

“Did you see your boss? He entered the cafe where you are.” – she told me. “How do you know?”

Znala je jer je radila u centru grada, u uredu/kancelariji na petom katu/spratu.

She knew because she worked in the center of the town, in the office on the 5th floor.

Gledala je centar grada i vidjela/videla ljude koji su šetali, djecu/decu koja su vozila bicikl i, takođe, mene i šefa. 

She was watching the town center and saw people who were in walk, kids who were riding bike, and also, me and my boss.

U tom trenutku sam ga ugledala.

At that moment I saw him.

Sjedio/Sedeo je pored prozora. Čitao je novine, ali nije pio ništa.

He was sitting next to the window. He was reading the newspaper but he didn’t drink anything.

Samo je jeo kroasan. Onda je ustao i uzeo je kafu za poneti.

He was eating croissant only. Then he got up and took coffee to go.

Uh, zrak/vazduh je čist. Tada sam ustala i ja (takođe) i izašla iz kafića.

Oh, the air is clear. I got up then, too, and got out of the cafe.

This story is narrated in the past tense. In Croatian and Serbian, the same grammar construction is used for all the past tense forms that exist in English and other languages. What is called in English “past simple” (Ex. I did) and “past continuous” (I was doing), in Serbo-Croatian is the same construction.

However, there is little difference between these two forms. It’s something we call “perfective” (simple) and “imperfective” (continuous) forms but about this later. Now let’s see how to form the past tense.

It’s formed from two parts. The first part is the present tense of the verb “to be”. It’s the first you learned probably. I’ll remind you:

ja	sam
ti	si
on, ona	je
mi	smo
vi	ste
oni, one	su

This is the first part. The second part is formed the way:

1. you have an infinitive. For example: raditi
2. remove – ti from the infinitive. It left: radi
3. put one of the suffixes:

o – for masculine

la – for feminine

lo – for neutral

li – for plural (only masculine or masculine and feminine mixed)

le – for plural (only feminine)

EXAMPLES

If you’re a man and you want to say: Yesterday I worked, you’d say:

Jučer, ja sam radio.

If you’re a woman, the same sounds:

Ja sam radila.

In both cases, the first part is “sam” because it refers to “ja” but the second part changes due to the person’s gender.

Therefore, we can see that the narrator of our story is a woman because it says:

CRO: Jučer sam bila u gradu i vidjela sam bivšeg šefa…

SRB: Juče sam bila u gradu i videla sam bivšeg šefa…

But when talking about her boss, who is a man, it’s used another form: On je vidio/video

The same is with the second person singular – ti. When you talk with someone, will you use masculine form (example: Šta si radio?) or feminine form (Šta si radila?) depending on if the person is a man or woman, boy or girl.

In the PLURAL, there are two options depending on people’s genders, too.

If you’re a man and you’re in a group of only men, men and women or even only women, you’ll always say: Mi smo radili.

But if you’re a woman, you will say “Mi smo radili” if there are only men or men and women in your group. If there are only women, you will say: Mi smo radile.

The same works for “vi”. For “oni”, it’s always radili and for “one” – radile.

EXAMPLES

The same rule about the past tense applies to any other verb whose infinitive ends with -ti. Let’s see the examples from the text:

Naručila sam kavu/kafu s mlijekom/mlekom…

Čitala sam knjigu kad me sestra zvala na mobitel… (when we have “me” and “te” in the sentence, it’s not needed to use “je”, but it’s not incorrect, so you can add it: kad me je sestra zvala.)

Znala je jer je radila u centru grada…

Gledala je centar grada…

…ljude koji su šetali, djecu/decu koja su vozila bicikl… (djeca/deca as a collective noun is specific – first part is adjusted to plural, which “djeca/deca” are in reality, but the second part is adjusted to its grammatical gender, and it’s feminine)

U tom trenutku sam ga ugledala. Sjedio/Sedeo je pored prozora. Čitao je novine, ali nije pio ništa. Samo je jeo kroasan. Onda je ustao i uzeo je kavu/kafu za poneti.

Tada sam ustala i ja…

NOTE that we can not literally translate the past tense, like: Ja sam radila – I am worked. These two parts of the past tense are translated together, as one part. In English past simple – I worked or past continuous – I was working – depending on the context.

NEGATION IN THE PAST TENSE

…ali on nije video mene. — Here you can see how to make a negation in the past. Only negate the first part:

Ja nisam radila, ti nisi radio, mi nismo radili, etc.

VERBS -JETI/ETI GROUP

As seen in the first sentence, the verbs of -jeti in Croatian and -eti group in Serbian form the past tense the same way as all the verbs whose infinitives end with -ti, like raditi, gledati, slušati…

However, in Croatian, these verbs are different a little bit only in masculine form. Instead of:

On je vidje-ti –> vidjeo

The correct form is:

On je vidio (“je” changes to “i”)

The same will be:

živjeti – Ja sam živio.

željeti – Ti si želio.

But it’s only in masculine form and in Croatian.

In Serbian, the infinitive ends with -eti so it’s always regular:

videti –> vide-ti –>On je video, ona je videla, mi smo videli…

živeti –> Ja sam živeo, ona je živela, oni su živeli…

VERBS -ĆI GROUP

The next sentence in the text shows an example of how to make the past tense from the verbs that end with -ći in the infinitive form, like:

ići (to go), ući (to enter, to come in), izaći (to go out/to leave), doći (to come), naći (to find) and more.

The rule is that you remove the last “i”, change “ć” with “š” and then put the suffixes:

ao – for masculine

la – for feminine

lo – for masculine

li – for plural

le – for plural feminine

These are actually the same suffixes we use with the verbs that end with -ti, only the masculine form is a little bit different (-ao instead of only -o):

Ušao je u kafić… (UĆI)

Let’s see other examples of -ći verbs in the past tense from the text:

Išla sam u kafić. (IĆI)

Tada sam ustala i ja i izašla iz kafića. (IZAĆI)

Exceptions are a few verbs of -ći group:

reći (to tell) – rekao, rekla, rekli Ušao je u kafić gdje/gde si ti.“ – rekla mi je.

peći (to bake) – pekao, pekla, pekli

obući se (to get dressed) – obukao, obukla, obukli

moći (to be able) – mogao, mogla, mogli

pomoći (to help) – pomogao, pomogla, pomogli

VERBS -STI GROUP (JESTI & SJESTI/SESTI)

These verbs lose the last -sti before adding the suffixes:

Naručila sam kavu/kafu i sjela/sela za stol/sto. – SJESTI/SESTI

Samo je jeo kroasan. – JESTI

QUESTIONS IN THE PAST TENSE

And the last we need to learn about the past tense is how to make questions.

CROATIAN

-long form of the first part:

Ja sam radila.

The long form of “sam” is “jesam”. The same is with the rest:

ti jesi, mi jesmo, vi jeste, oni jesu. The exception is: on, ona je (stays short).

Jesi + li + radila + ? Jesi li radila? (Did you work?)

Je li on radio? or Je li radio?

Jeste li radili?

Jesu li radili?

With QUESTION WORDS, it’s used the short form: Što si radio? Što si radila? Gdje ste pili kavu? Kada je Marko jeo doručak?

SERBIAN

In Serbian, just put the phrase “da li” in the beginning:

Da li si radio? Da li si jela? Da li ste pili kafu?

Order of the past tense parts

In the past tense, we also don’t need to use the pronouns (ja, ti, on, ona…) if it’s not necessary. We can remove them but then, just reverse two parts of the past tense:

Sam išla – incorrect

Išla sam – correct

You can do the same with other -ći group verbs. Examples:

Došao sam na posao u 8. ( I came to work at 8)

Našli ste moj mobitel! (You guys found my mobile phone! or You guys have found my mobile phone – present perfect in English is also translated with the past tense in Croatian and Serbian)

The same is with the verbs that end with -ti:

Naručila sam kavu/kafu s mlijekom/mlekom…

Čitala sam knjigu…

Znala je jer je radila u centru grade

Čitao je novine…