Celebrating the Croatian Nominative Case

Photo by Al Elmes on Unsplash

As an American who moved to Croatia more than 15 years ago, I've attended various Croatian classes. Some have been really helpful, others not so much. 

Experience has taught me that if you are planning on living in Croatia for awhile, the best language practice is through conversation, making mistakes and engaging in everyday situations. That's how kids learn languages. 

I don't remember ever learning the difference between accusative and locative, for example. But I do remember learning how to say phrases in both cases without even realizing it. 

So, as a way of helping myself solidify various aspects of the Croatian language and hopefully helping others who are learning Croatian as a second language, I've decided to do a series on learning Croatian through songs. 

An added benefit is that if you're fairly new to Croatia, this will help you get a feel for some of the music that's out there. 

It seems logical then to begin with a popular song, especially in Dalmatia and at weddings, while working on the 1st case - nominative. 

Song: Večeras je naša fešta by Tomislav Ivčić

Just for context, this song came out in 1986. Any guesses what the top song in the U.S. was that year? Answer here.

Regardless of how much Croatian you know, I'd encourage you to listen through the song at least once. What words do you understand? What's the song about?

Question: The nominative case in Croatian is the easiest to identify and use. Why?

When I was learning English grammar in school, the thing I remember the most is breaking sentences into their subject, predicate and looking for the verb. Here in Croatia, the cases are THE MAIN thing. And especially for a foreigner who is not used to thinking of languages in cases, this can be really intimidating.

The thing about cases in Croatian is that they cause noun endings to change ALL THE TIME. That's what makes the nominative case so wonderful. The nouns on your vocabulary list stay the same in the nominative. 

Which brings us to the title of today's song. If you've learned the words večeras or fešta, you'll be relieved to find out that those noun endings haven't changed. Cheers!

Main point: In the nominative case, nouns don't change their endings. 

Let's take a look at the song lyrics. 


Now, if you're a foreigner who has moved to Dalmatia, this song will seem like it's using fairly normal vocabulary. If you're a foreigner who has moved to Slavonija, on the other hand, you'll need some help with misto, piva and cili, just to name some examples from the first four lines. I'll address that below. 

The nominative case is used in the subject of the sentence. So, večeras is in the nominative because it is the subject. Svako misto (every place) is the subject of the very first sentence of the song and is therefore also in the nominative. 

Then why is naša fešta (in the sentence Večeras je naša fešta) also in the nominative if it's not the subject of the sentence? That's because the nominative case can also be used in the predicate of a sentence if the noun isn't being affected. Nothing is happening to the fešta, it's just a party. So it stays in the nominative. 

In the first line of the song, something DOES happen to the fešta. Every place HAS one. Therefore fešta goes into the accusative - feštu. 

That's enough grammar for me. But if you want a more detailed explanation, this video does a great job. 

***By the way, my Croatian is not perfect! It's important to know that I am neither a Croatian teacher nor a fluent Croatian speaker. But I am doing this series because I found that the typical way Croats learn their own language is quite different than I do. I needed different methods. I am not doing this to flex my fairly weak Croatain muscles. Rather, I'm doing this because I hope to provide a creative supplement to formal language learning by appealing to what has worked in my own experience.***

Nor have I lived in Dalmatia. So check with your Dalmatian friends on this. But here are the lexical versions of the words that have been adjusted above:

  • misto - mjesto (place)
  • piva - pjeva (sing, piva can be confusing because it looks like pivo, piva which means beer)
  • cili - cijeli (all)
  • ko - tko (who, this one is also confusing because sometimes kao also gets shortened to ko)
See, some have called Dalmatians lazy. I would never make that accusation. But you can see why someone might say that when they eliminate up to one third of the letters in the lexical form of Croatian words! 

On the other hand, this song does a great job of helping non-Dalmatians understand Dalmatian culture. In the end, if you don't sing, you're not Dalmatian. In my 15+ years in Croatia, I haven't witnessed an exception to the rule. 

***Croatian speakers: Please feel free to correct anything I've written that's wrong or misleading!***

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