We have learned some personal pronouns (ti, vi, on...) but not all. Also, we’ve seen only their subject forms, i.e. the nominative case. What if we want to use pronouns as objects? What if we want to say I am? How to say I love you? How to say she loves me?
10.1 First and second person pronouns
As in English, the forms of pronouns are not regular and have to be learned. Fortunately, they are not too complicated (and two of them are similar to English pronouns). Here are the forms for the first two persons (I, you, we):
| singular | plural | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| pers. | N | A | N | A | |
| 1st | ja· | me² | mi· | nas² | |
| 2nd | ti· | te² | vi· | vas² | |
Like the word je², personal pronouns in accusative must be put to the second position in a sentence, and are pronounced together with the preceding word. For example:
A·na_me1 A če·ka. Ana is waiting for me.
As usual, the second position should not be understood mechanically. Two or more words, if they form a phrase, can occupy the first position, and then pronouns will be pronounced together with the second, or maybe the third word. It’s normal to say:
Mo·j pri·jatelj_te2 A če·ka. My friend is waiting for you.
(I’ll explain the possessive adjective mo·j my in the next chapter. It’s a bit special, e.g. it never gets an -i in masc.)
Then, of course, there’s the famous example:
Vo·lim_te2 A. I love you. (to someone you’re familiar with)
To help you learn forms of personal pronouns not in N, they will be displayed in dark blue, and you can get a pop-up by placing your mouse over them (or by touching them on a touchscreen) containing basic information, e.g. 1 A = 1st person, accusative; 2pl A = 2nd person, plural, A, and so on. Check the examples above!
As I’ve already explained, Croatian vi/vas stands both for plural (y’all, you guys) and respect (you sir/madam). The second use is usually distinguished by using a capital V in writing:
A·na_vas2pl A če·ka. Ana is waiting for you (guys).
A·na_Vas2pl A če·ka. Ana is waiting for you (sir/madam).
(There are also longer, ‘stressed’ forms of personal pronouns, but they are used only in specific circumstances, and will be introduced later.)
10.2 Third person pronouns
And here are the forms in the 3rd person singular (he, she, it):
| 3rd person | ||
|---|---|---|
| N | A | |
| fem. | ona ▶ | je² / ju² |
| neut. | ono | ga² |
| masc. | on ▶ | |
As you can see, the 3rd person accusative pronouns have one form for all genders except the feminine. You’ll see that pronouns have much fewer forms than you have maybe expected. For example:
Vo·lim_ga3m/n A. I love him/it. (depending on the context)
O·na·_ga3m/n A ne_poznajepoznavati. She doesn’t know him/it. (depending on the context)
The accusative case of ona she has two forms...... For example, if you’re talking about a knjiga book – a feminine noun – both are acceptable and used:
Či·to·m_je3f A. I’m reading it. (lit. ‘reading her’)
Či·to·m_ju3f A. (the same meaning)
(Since the form of pronoun je² coincides with the pres-3 of biti (je² +) be, it’s avoided when the verbal je² appears in the same sentence; we’ll see such sentences a bit later).
Pay attention: the noun knjiga book is feminine. The same goes for voda water and kuća house. And the same goes for noć night and rije·č word. You have to use feminine pronouns (ona, ju², je²) when referring to them, as you would use for your sister.
Likewise, nož knife and auto (aut-) car are masculine nouns. You have to use same pronouns to talk about a knife, a car and your brother.
10.3 Describing people
Pronouns are often used to describe what something is. Both what’s described and the description should be in the default, dictionary form – the nominative case. For example:
Ivan je student. Ivan is a (university) student.
On je student. He’s a (university) student.
English has only one word – student – for both male and female students. For most such roles, Croatian has two words, one for male, another for female.
There’s no straight rule how male and female words relate, but most often, the word for female is made by adding -ica to the word for male (the suffix -ica has other uses as well):
| male | female | |
|---|---|---|
| singer | pjevač | pjevačica |
| professor | profesor | profesorica ® |
| (univ.) student | student | studentica ® |
| teacher | učitelj | učiteljica |
For example, if a female person is a student, you would say:
Vesna je studentica. Vesna is a (university) student.
Croatian has two words that correspond to English man:
čovjek man/human
muškarac (muškarc-) man (focus on masculinity)
You would use čovjek in all normal circumstances (you can and should use it in generic sense, for someone you don’t know sex of), and the other word is used only when it’s important that someone is male, e.g. when talking about how he looks:
Ivan je marljiv čovjek. Ivan is a hard-working man.
On je zgodan muškarac. He’s a handsome man.
For most animals (humans included) the default gender is masculine: you can use masculine nouns when you have a mixed group, if you simply don’t know someone’s sex or you want to speak about people or some animals in general. The masc. gender is so generic that it can be sometimes used for women too:
Ana je dobar čovjek. lit. ‘Ana is a good man/human.’
Ona je novi profesor. She’s the new professor.
It’s all nice, but how to say I’m a student (male or female)? For that, we need another personal pronoun introduced above (the N form, of course), and the right verb form:
biti (je² +) be → pres-1 sam²
For example:
Ja sam student. I’m a student. (male)
Ja sam studentica. I’m a student. (female)
Croatian does not use personal pronouns as subjects often, but in such sentences, they are used.
However, when you are describing a condition at the moment, something that can change in any minute, using adjectives, pronouns are usually omitted. Instead of ja sam..., this is the most often used form:
Gladan sam. I’m hungry. (male)
Gladna sam. I’m hungry. (female)
Pay attention: although ja and ti don’t distinguish gender, you still have to adjust the adjective to the gender ‘hidden’ behind them. This is similar to Romance languages like Italian and Spanish:
(Sp.) Estoy cansado. I am tired. (male)
(Sp.) Estoy cansada. I am tired. (female)
If you know some Spanish, it could interest you that the use or dropping of personal pronouns in Croatian sentences like I am... basically matches Spanish verbs ser vs. estar (but there are some exceptions):
| Spanish | Croatian |
|---|---|
| Soy estudiante. | Ja sam student. |
| Estoy cansado. | Gladan sam. |
If you would add an adverb (i.e. opet again, možda maybe, jako very etc.), it never behaves as attached to the adjective, so second position words easily come in between.
Goran je jako gladan. Goran is very hungry.
Jako sam gladan. I’m very hungry. (male)
(Normally the adverb comes left from the adjective, but it can be tweaked too to emphasize the adverb.)
10.4 Negation
What about saying you’re not hungry? The same principle works as for other forms of present of the verb biti – just add ni- ®; the resulting form is not restricted to the second position and in fact, usually comes before the adjective (but adverbs modifying the adjective usually come in between):
Nisam gladan. I’m not hungry. (male)
Uopće nisam gladna. I’m not hungry at all. (female)
Nisam jako gladna. I’m not very hungry. (female)
The second person pronoun is ti in singular and vi in plural (also used for polite addressing). The corresponding forms of verb biti we have already learned.
Nisi gladan. You are not hungry. (male)
Gladna si. You’re hungry. (female)
In nominative plural, adjectives get ending -i in the masculine gender, for mixed-sex groups, but also in all polite sentences, regardless of the real gender of person you’re addressing:
Gladni ste. (all-male group)
Gladni ste. (mixed group)
Gladni ste. (politely to one person, male or female)
All sentences above, of course, translate to English as just you’re hungry. Feminine plural adjectives get -e in nominative; it’s used only for groups where all members have feminine gender:
Gladne ste. (all-female group)
The same rule works for 1st person plural (we are) where the personal pronoun is mi and the verb to be has the following form:
biti (je² +) be → pres-1pl smo²
(This is an exception to the rule that pres-1pl is simply pres-1 + o.)
For instance:
Umorni smo. We’re tired. (all-male group)
Umorni smo. (mixed group)
Umorne smo. (all-female group)
________
® In Serbia and usually in Bosnia, the accusative form ju² is used only if there’s the pres-3 form je² in the same sentence.
In Serbia, instead of profesorica and studentica, profesorka and studentkinja prevail, but učiteljica is used everywhere.
In Montenegro, negative present tense forms of the verb biti (je² +) be have always nije-, i.e. nijesam, nijesi etc., but the 3rd pers. is just nije.
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