If you're trying to learn Croatian, you will probably realise that Croatian language, as beautiful as it is, can represent quite a challenge and a daily struggle with its often unpredictable and various changes. So, we asked prof. Mihaela Naletilić Šego, a Croatian language teacher from the Croatian language centre CRO to go, to help us help you out with the little secrets of the Croatian language.

Molim? Hvala! Izvoli! Oprosti!

Prodajemo karte za tramvaj – This was handwritten with a black marker on a wrinkled piece of paper and taped to the glass of the little news stand which I was approaching that cold Wednesday morning a couple of days ago.

I was just about to open my mouth and ask: Oprostite, imate li karte za tramvaj? Excuse me, do you sell tram tickets?

But then I spotted that sign, so instead I just said:

- Jednu kartu, molim Vas! One ticket, please!
- Izvolite! There you go! – said the sales lady.
- Hvala! Thanks! – I replied – Oh, and you have a nice sign! – I smiled at her and wanted to leave, but that little sentence opened up Pandora's box.

- I know! – the sales lady was obviously very upset – Can you believe every f*cking five minutes a person comes up to the f*cking news stand and asks me if I sell f*cking tram tickets!? Well, why don't you ask me for the f*cking ticket and i will I sell it to you if I have it! I mean it's just f*cking unbelivable! – she was yelling and frenetically waving her hands.

- Oprostite što sam nepristojna! I'm sorry I'm being so rude ! Hvala što ste me saslušali! Thank you for listening to me! Have a nice day! - she suddenly realised that she was talking to a customer, fixed her hair a bit and closed the little window in front of her.

It was nice of her to apologise, but in fact, if I put aside the swearing and yelling, she was actually quite polite and used all the little important polite Croatian words:

Molim? - I beg your pardon?

Izvoli! - Here you go

Hvala! - Thank you

Oprosti! - Please forgive me or excuse me

Lijepa riječ otvara i željezna vrata. A nice word opens even iron gates, as one nice Croatian saying would advise us. It might open the iron gate, but it certainly doesn't open the gates of – Croatian bureaucracy!

I realised that one rainy January morning when I tried to get some information on the parking ticket that I'd received, by using – a telephone. You know, a telephone, that fancy new gadget that Alexander Graham Bell invented recently in order for people to get information they need by using a wire instead of walking to the other part of town on rainy Monday mornings.

I sat down that morning and dialled the Information centre of the city office.

- Molim? Yes? - A tiresome and utterly bored female voice answered my call somewhere in the wasteland of the city office after the phone rang for aproximately 45 times.

- Yes, hello - I opened my mouth enthusiastically - I wanted to get some information about the parking ticket I received...
- Gospođo, Madam - the voice said slowly - You can pay your parking ticket in any bank or you can do it here in person…
- No, no, no, I don't want to pay it, i just need some information…
- Where would I be if I gave out information to every person that rings here? asked the bored voice, interrupting me.

Erm… in the information office, I thought to myself, but out loud I just took a deep breath and said:

- Could you put me through to someone who can give me the information that I need?
- Of course. You should have said so in the first place, the bored voice replied utterly apathetically.
- Hva… I wanted to say thank you, but a sudden loud sound interrupted me.

La la la la. la la la. Ah, its Tchaikovsky, symphony No.3.

I was just about to fall asleep daydreaming to the nice music, when I finally got connected.

- Dobar dan! Good day!
- Yes, hello – I began happily - I was so happy I finally reached someone who I can ask…
- You reached the talking machine of the city office – the voice goes on - for citizen's advice call on work days from 13:00 until 14:00...

I checked my watch. It was 08:15. So I redailed Miss Bored Voice and firmly decided to be a bit more tough with her this time!

La la la la. La la la. La laaaaa....

- Dobar dan! I want to talk to someone about my parking ticket, I don't want to pay it, I don't want to be put on hold and I don't want to talk to a talking machine and if you don't connect me to someone this second, I will…
- Nema problema, gospođo! No problem, Madam! – the new, male voice said - Samo polako! Take it easy!
- What do you mean, nema problema? – I asked with absolute mistrust.
- I will put you through, replied the voice

And so he did.
La la la la. La la la. La laaaaa...

- Moooolim! Hello! - a fluttery soft voice twitted to my handset a few seconds later - How can I asist you?
- Oprostite, sorry, is this still the city office?
- Yes, of course! Izvolite? What can I do for you? - This new, fluttery voice was music to my ears.

In the next few seconds I explained my parking ticket situation to the nice lady with the fluttery voice.

- Let me see what we can do about it. I'll check on my computer.
- So, I don't have to go down there in person? - I asked the nice lady rather timidly.
- Molim Vas! Oh, Please! Why should you have to? We're all connected now you know! – she laughed candidly to me.

- However, I am with a client now, so if you could please just call back in ten minutes, we will solve your problem!

- But wait! Who should I ask for? - I yelled down the phone frantially. Too late. She was gone. Still, I waited politely for twelwe minutes and called the nice lady again.

La la la la. La la la. La laaaa...

- Molim? Yes? - Miss Bored Voice phlegmatically answered.
- Yes, I just called ten minutes ago and your colleague connected me to the lady who…
- Oh, it's you again - Miss Bored Voice sighed. What colleague? I don't have a colleague. I work alone.
- Well, maybe a ghost connected me then, how do I know? - I was getting a bit tired of this whole thing at this point, but Miss Bored Voice showed no reaction to my open provocations.
- Wait a minute - she sighed again.

Miss Bored Voice was obviousley on to something now.

- Maybe the doorman answered the phone while I went for a glas of water. My tooth hurts like crazy. Joooža! Jooooža! Did you answer the phone?! - Miss Bored Voice yells.

I could hear the poor doorman Joža minding his own business and just shrugging his shoulders all the way across town.

- Gospođo, Madam, the doorman doesn't have a clue about any nice lady who gave you any kind of information. Hold on, I have another call. I'll put you on hold...

- No, no, don't put me on hold, I just need to talk to the nice lady!

La la la la. La la la. La la. Tchaikovsky. Symphony No. 3.

- Yes, Mirjana, yes - I could hear Miss Bored Voice geting much more excited about a cake recipe after some ten minutes of listening to the wonderful but repetitive Tchaikovky - Just put the flour in before the eggs, that's the trick! Hahahahah yes, yes, what can you do! A kako je Damir? How is Damir? Pozdravi ga! Tell him I said hi!

- Molim? Yes? - she said as she finally addressed me - Oh, it's still you... - the voice sounded pretty disappointed that I was still there.

And then I snapped.

- Look here, I had enough of this treatment. I want to talk to your supervisor this minute! - I screamed at her.
- Well good luck with that! I've been wanting to talk with him for days about my overtime working hours - I could even feel Miss Bored Voice smirking slyly over the phone.
- I'm not joking! - Now I was yelling. Put me through to your supervisor this minute!
- Nema problema gospođo! Izvolite! No problem, Madam! Here you go!

Of course, I was greeted with Tchaikovsky and symphony No.3 once again.

If you happen to see (or hear) the nice lady with a fluttery voice from the city office, please tell her I said hi!

If you want to learn more about Croatian language courses, click here.

If you're trying to learn Croatian , you will probably realise that Croatian language, as beautiful as it is, can represent quite a challenge and a daily struggle with its often unpredictable and various changes. So we asked prof. Mihaela Naletilić Šego, Croatian language teacher from Croatian language centre CRO to go, to help us help you out with the little secrets of the Croatian language.

Kako si?

A wise man once made an excellent remark on Croatia and Croatian people after spending some time here: Croatia is such a beautiful land, but I have never seen as many sad looking people on the streets as I did in Croatia.

If you ever took a ride in one of Zagreb's blue trams you might wonder: Could these worried and agitated looking people with mobile phones in their hands be the same shiny happy people laughing and simply glowing from the photos posted on social networks?

If you look at it in general – as a nation - we carry around a big grey cloud of constant dissatisfaction over our heads. We did experience a short period of blissful and unspoiled national hapiness this summer during the World Cup, though!

In that short period of time, everybody was grinning on the street for no reason whatsoever, drivers weren't swearing at each other, mums weren't yelling at their children on playgrounds and there were a lot of random happy faces on the streets of Croatia.

But those days seem long forgotten now, and we just went back to being the unsatisfied nation with that big grey Croatian – nothing is good in this country - umbrella above our heads! I often find myself riding in a blue tram or walking through Zagreb streets with a grey cloud filled with thoughts over my head. And then I bump into an old acquaintese whom I heaven't seen for ten years. Actually – my ex boyfriend. Who of course happens to look amazing that morning. It's obvious that he'd spent quite some time in the gym since we broke up!

Thank God I went jogging yesterday and woke up a bit earlier this morning in order to apply a ton of makeup, I thought.

- You look great! – he says.
- Thank you! – I reply politely and twinkle my eyes.
- The same as when we were at college! – he goes on.

Well, he was always a bit of a compulsive liar, now that I think of it. And then he pops out the eternal question: Kako si? How're you doing?

How might one reply to the most commonly asked question in the world when its your ex boyfriend, whom you haven't seen in a decade, asking, one might wonder? While I was thinking about what reply I could give to absolutely dazzle him, I started to wonder how Croats approach this eternal question. There are a few possible answers you might get when you ask about other poeple's lives in Croatia.

The complete and noncensored life story. Some people just don't realise that kako si? is asked out of courtesy, and simply get an urge to tell you their entire life story. A bit like my neighbour.

- Kako ste, susjeda? How are you, neighbour? – I would ask her while heading to my work.

- Oh, I have been fine lately, thank you for asking! – she smiles happily to me.
- Good, I'm glad! – I reply quickly and start to move my feet since I'm already a bit late for work.
- Nice to see you! – I try to turn my back and wave a bit to her to say goodbye.

Try is the key word in this sentence.

- But you know what happened to us just last month? - she gently but decisively grabs me underneath my arm – Do you know that we had a burglar at our cabin in the mountains?

- Yes, that's very nice, I'm glad for you – I'm obviously not paying attention anymore, trying desperately to free my arm and catch that tram which is just around the corner - but I really need to go, I'm in a bit of a rush…

- Imagine the nerve of him! To barge into a house like that! – she completly ignores attempts to escape and continues with the endless burglar story, as I watch sadly how tram number 12 is leaving the tram station without me.

- Of course, we called the police – now she's yelling – But what did they do, I ask you? Nothing!

The interesting fact with these people who tell you their entire life story, is that when it's your turn to tell your life story story, suddenly they run out of time.

- A kako si ti, draga moja? And how are you, my dear? – she finally remembers that I might have something going on in my life as well.

- Well, you know… I start talking, but in that moment she experiences an instant Eureka-moment.

- Oh, no! I forgot I have to be home in five minutes to let the dog out! Nice seeing you! – and just like that, she's gone.

Nisam baš dobro. I'm not so good.

A lot of people will tell you: Nisam baš dobro. And some aren't very good at that point in their lives, and it's therefore nice that someone can listen to them and maybe make them feel a bit better. But then there are those people who are simply always dissatisfied.

- Oh, I'm not so good. You know I won a lottery last month. We bought a new car and paid off all of our debts. My daughter got a new job and we're going skiing this weekend. But, the weather is really lousy lately… This jugo (type of southerly wind) is killing me!

The weather is a huge ''mood issue'' in this beautiful country. Somehow it seems that there is always something wrong with the weather. And there is! it's so warm in the summer you have to wear short sleeves. The rain just won't stop falling in autumn and sometimes it gets so cold in winter that it actually snows. Not to mention all the wind in spring time! Ah, the wind. One of Croatia's unresolved mysteries.

Growing up in a big house in a cold and foggy little town on four rivers with my grandmother who moved there from warm and sunny Dalmatia, I soon realised that the wind is a higly important life issue. Grandma Marica was eternally worried about the weather, and the the posibilty that some day, somewhere, somehow you might just simply freeze. She was especially concerned about the wind situation.

- Put a sweater on your back, there's some nasty north wind outside! – she would often warn me. The worst enemy of all possible winds was, of course, the propuh (draught).

- Put some clothes on those children! she would anxiously yelled to my mum while our old car with no air conditioning was leaving the backyard melting in the tropical summer heat.

- You have no idea how draughty it can get on the ferry boat!

Lately I have realised that the mood of lots of Croats depends on the type of wind that is currently blowing outside. And that biometeorogical weather report every night after the evening news is certainly not helping the nationwide situation of unhappiness. You just had a great day and you're feeling happy and good about yourself and your life and then you watch the evening weather forecast.

Some very educated looking and serious looking guy tells you that the weather conditions will not be good at all tomorrow, and that sensitive people can expect headaches, dark thoughts, severe moping and in short – they will have a crappy day.

Tako – tako. So – so.

A wise and a good diplomatic answer that makes your friends interested in a discussion over a beer, and your acquintances, just a bit confused.

But, you know what the best answer to kako si? would be? Dobro sam, hvala! Good, thank you! or Odlično, hvala! Great, thank you!

Dobro sam! I'm fine! or even better Odlično! Great! – with a smile on your face. It makes your friends happy and your enemies miserable, and we sure need some more smiling faces in Croatia. After all, the World Cup wasn't such a long time ago!

If you want to learn more about Croatian language courses, click here.

If one of your New Year’s resolutions is to learn Croatian, you'll probably realise that Croatian language, as beautiful as it is, can represent quite a challenge and a daily struggle with it’s often unpredictable and various changes. So we asked prof. Mihaela Naletilić Šego, a Croatian language teacher from the Croatian language centre CRO to go, to help us help you out with some of the little secrets of the Croatian language.

Oprostite, koliko je sati? Excuse me, what time is it?

For a lot of people who move to Croatia, after a few weeks of living in their new country, Einstein's postulates on the relativity of time suddenly get a whole new meaning. That usually happens the very first time a newcomer encounters an urgent pipe problem in their household and has to call – the plumber.

That exact thing happened to my friend Anna just a few weeks after she moved to Croatia. It was one warm Sunday evening when she came home from town to find her bathroom completely flooded. Anna grabbed her phone, and quickly found a number on the Internet.

Hitne intervencije / Emergency repairs – it was written. She explained her problem to the man on the other end. He didn't seem overly impressed by her bathroom flood situation. He yawned a couple of times and just mumbled:

''Yes, yes, madam. We'll be there tomorrow morning, no problem.''
''What do you mean tomorrow?'' Anna was confused. ''My entire bathroom is flooded!''
''Gospođo/Madam, it's a holiday weekend. Tomorrow morning is the best I can do,'' the plumber replied indifferently.

''U koliko sati dolazite? What time will you be here? she asked naively.

''Gospođo, odakle da ja to znam? Imamo posla preko glave! Računajte da bi između sedam i dvanaest bi mogli biti kod Vas. Madam, how can I know that? We're up to our necks in work! We should be there between seven and twelve,'' the plumber seemed agitated.

The next morning Anna got up early, dressed up, made some coffee – and waited. And waited. And waited.

At 12:00 she started to suspect that the words between seven and twelve in fact meant between seven and midnight - and she decided to call the plumber once more. The plumber apologised and once again very vividly explained how they are fully booked and up to biiip work and biiip…

''Sutra dolazimo, gospođo, sigurno! Nema problema! We're coming tomorrow, Madam, no problem (or perhaps more accurately in English - no worries)'' he sounded cheerful and promising.

I'm not going to go on with this story, because, to be honest, I have no idea how it ended. Last time I heard from Anna, she was still waiting in her kitchen. I'm sure they will be there tomorrow, though. The plumber promised her just a few days ago!

That Monday, Anna realised that the word tomorrow in Croatia has a metaphorical meaning. It could mean a number of things, such as: later this week, sometime this month, this year, in February or in spring time… but it never, ever means – tomorrow.

Croatian is a really interesting language. You can find at least ten different words for such an ordinary thing as a ladle: grabljača, grabilica, kutljača, kaciola, palj,paljak, šefarka, šeflja, kutal, kačica…

And then you find out that Croats use one word that describes ten different things at the same time!

Let's take a look at the Croatian word SAT, for example. Sat is a word that translates to watch, as in the watch you'd wear on your wrist. Imagine you're going out with a friend in Zagreb. You are all dressed up and have your new watch/sat on your wrist. Of course, you're heading out to the main square, because your friend said:

Nađemo se kod sata! Let's meet by the clock! (Yes, sat is also a clock).

If you're meeting someone in Zagreb, that sentence most commonly means only one thing – that you are meeting by the clock on Trg bana Jelačića (Ban Jelačić square) or the main Zagreb square, or simply - Trg.

Meeting someone by the clock can get a little tricky if the person you are meeting is from Dalmatia. I've had my fair share of experiences freezing under the clock on Trg waiting for my dear friend from Split who promised to be there right on time that windy January evening. U pola sedam (half past seven). I had been standing there for at least forty five minutes until I realised that down in Dalmatia, time goes by a bit differently.

7.30 in Zagreb is pola osam (as in, half an hour to eight), while in Split is referred to as sedam i po (seven and a half). From that time, whenever I set an appointment with my Split friend at, let's say 10:30, I always doublecheck – That’s deset i po, right?

You might have noticed that Croats often say: Vidimo se za sat vremena! See you in one hour!

Although this sentence also sometimes has a metaphorical meaning, the word sat in Croatian also has another meaning – hour.

None of these sentences should create a confusion in your mind. But if you text your Croatian friend and ask him to go to out with you, it might confuse you when you get the reply: Na satu sam! I'm on the clock!

Although Croats can be a bit peculiar on occasions, I assure you that this sentence doesn't mean that that your Croatian friend is currently sitting on that main square clock we mentioned earlier just waiting for you! It does mean that they are currently in some kind of a lesson and cannot answer your question.

Na satu sam. I'm in a lesson.

And of course, if you get lost in time wandering through the many charming little streets of Zagreb while waiting for your friend, you can always ask: Oprostite, koliko je sati? Excuse me, what time is it?

If you want to learn more about Croatian language courses, click here.

27th of December, 2018 - Of life and language in Dalmatia and Zagreb.

After having spent eight months trying to find a job in Croatia, I had decided to pursue happiness abroad. Since I have found out that I am not exactly the kind that can just pack her stuff and hit the road, I needed some kind of assurance before I left.

Being a Political Sciences graduate, I knew how competitive in the labour market I was – spoiler alert: very little.

So, one advantage I had, when looking at my CV, were the many languages I listed, some of which are Croatian, Bosnian, Serbian and Montenegrin. The first version of my English CV did not have all of those, of course, but my friend concluded that foreign employers don’t realize those are so similar, one could even say - variations of one language, with all due respect to our Prime Minister; so I kept them in the CV.

Nevertheless, the job I got the offer for required me to speak Croatian only, aside from English, and it was for a Czech company that was spreading onto the Croatian market. At this point, I feel the need to mention that I had gone through 3 interviews and had received a job offer within 3 weeks. Just for comparison, it usually took Croatian employers 2 months to answer my application/e-mail, if they ever did (90% never did), but that is a topic for another day.

Now that it was settled, I was to move in a few weeks to the Czech Republic, to a small town called Usti nad Labem, where they will provide accommodation for me for a few months and a refund for the travel expenses. I arranged everything, booked a train ticket and when the day came, kissed my friends goodbye and went on this new adventure.

Now, I haven’t been here for long but the first thing a foreigner will notice and will be annoyed with is the fact that people from Usti don't speak English. When I got here, I was supposed to open a bank account, buy a Czech number, a monthly ticket and all kinds of stuff in all kinds of places. And, wherever I went, the answer to my “Do you speak English?” question was a definite “No”. It was like they didn’t even feel bad at all, if anything, sometimes it felt like they were angry at me for not speaking Czech.

Luckily for me, Czech and Croatian languages have some similar words and I do know a bit of Czech from my time working in Gradac tourist office, so I manage. I don’t even want to imagine how my colleagues from the company, especially the Hungarians, go about. It’s not that most people won’t try to help you when you ask for directions, but they will have a hard time understanding what you need and I just can’t wrap my mind around the fact that young people can’t manage a simple conversation in English.

They do learn it in school, but why they refuse to use it is beyond me. I understand that Usti is a small town, not exactly a tourist destination, but they have a University, there are Erasmus students here and branches of international companies which employ people from all over Europe (myself included) so this, stubbornness maybe, is a true mystery.

Now that I’ve expressed my outmost disbelief regarding the non-English speaking citizens of my current residing town, let me make a small comparison to Zagreb, a big city where I had lived for 8 years. During that time, I had not lost my Dalmatian accent, nor had I picked up their words or expressions. I am not stating that in order to make myself look good or bad, it’s just a fact, important for the point I’ll be making.

A few days into moving to Zagreb, I went to a bakery where after I ordered bili kruv (“white bread”, ikavian), the woman asked me, in a condescending tone, if I had meant bijeli kruh (“white bread”, ijekavian); and remember, I was buying bread not defending my thesis. I didn’t make much of it at the time, but after it had happened on a few more occasions and with other expressions like kava s mlikon (“coffee with milk”, ikavian) instead of kava s mlijekom (“coffee with milk”, ijekavian) I started to get annoyed.

I wouldn’t say a word if those had been extremely different terms but if you understand me, why do you feel the need to correct my speech? I know the standard Croatian language, but I am not writing a book while ordering coffee so I don’t understand where the problem is. I have never told anyone who came to Dalmatia what the proper way to speak is, nor have I ever corrected someone’s kaj (“what”) or fakat (“really”, Zagreb slang) or their accent.

I believe that there are people in Dalmatia who do that, we are known for grintanje (grumbling) and 80% of us, 80% of the time are in grintanje mode, but I have never done that nor has anyone in my presence.

It is amazing when you think about it: people from Usti expect you to speak their language, but people in Zagreb expect you to speak their dialect! I will try to find out what is the deal with locals from Usti and their resentment for the English language, but don’t hold your breath; I still haven’t figured out why is there a feud between people from Zagreb and the Dalmatian dialect.

Article by Barbara Viskic

It's that time of year again. Grammar Nazis, this might hurt.

With the tourist season well and truly upon us, why not have a look at a few linguistic gems...

It's been a while...

Meet E, and its various extensions.