Croatian Really IS a Logical Language, But Why I Stopped Trying 

Why didn't you try to learn literary Croatian? Everyone understands when you speak literary Croatian. English also has a million dialects, but literary English is understood by everyone as well.

I’m Croatian and I agree - even I gave up. Literally every part of croatia has their own language. The most difficult one, of course, is MEĐIMURSKI, from MEĐIMURJE. Nobody alive understands what those people are saying… some say you have to be at a certain level of alcohol posioning to understand them.

With all due respect Paul, these are the kind of difficulties which every Croatian is facing whenever he/she travels. You stand the same chance of understanding somebody else's vocabulary as the rest of us. I don't think it should have discouraged you. When Croatians don't understand each other, they simply ask does the word mean.

You have to learn the Štokavian (Štokavski) dialect. It is the original (literary) Croatian language spoken in continental Croatia, especially in Slavonia.

For several years, I vacationed in Jelsa with my wife and children, and I witnessed the strangest early morning conversation: P1: Eee P2: Ee? P1: Aaaa P2: Eaa P1: Aaaa P2: Aa? P1: Aaeee P2: E And then they parted ways. After that, for years we went to Komiža on Vis and now mostly to Murter. The same thing happens all the time, the whole conversation using two letters.

as a native Croat i must say if you learn like book Croatian, everybody will understand u and not just in Croatia, but also in Bosnia, Serbia, Montenegro... If you ever hear a person from Međimurje speak, u will understand the meaning of the word dialect, cuz some people say that is an entirely different language (and trust me it is). Its the same like comming to Germany and learning the word Kartoffel (potato) and then come to Austria where they say Eardapfel for the same thing.

I love languages and as a Polyglot I wanted to learn Croatian for a really long time, after years of diligent study and living in Zagreb I met a group of local guys that I started to hang out with regularly, and let me tell you, their slang language is almost entirely different language XD, some call it Šatrovački, they invert all common words and break them in half and also have different names/words for every little thing in their culture, so their slang was one of the strongest I came across and most difficult as it was truly like learning another language with different set of rules, the dictionaries out there really don't do justice on how many synonyms this language actually has.

The richness of dialect in Croatian language is incredible. I'm part Dalmatian part Zagorec, educated in Zagreb. I came across at least 10 different dialects. It can literally differ from place to place, like you said. And when you speak Croatian you can hear the subtle difference. I live in a place of 4000 people, town next to us already speaks differently.

Volio bih vas čuti kako govorite Hrvatski. Vrlo ste simpatičan čovjek. Pozdrav iz Zagreba!

Every language has dialects. When you start learning one officially (in an institution that can give you some kind of diploma), you learn the oficial language. The oficial language is known by all of the people no matter what dialect they are speaking. But when you start learning a language at home, with people around you, it's a common logic you will learn their dialect because that's what they're using among themselves.

Man, you got a warped view of our language - islands are very specific, it's like learning English in Ireland, or South Africa, or Hawaii, and being intimidated by many differences from standard British English. These differences can be frustrating, yes, but they're not a reason to stop learning English. Most islanders adapt their speech when talking to Croatians who aren't from their island, and if you can master the neutral TV croatian, you should be able to get around just fine. I think you should reconsider your decision, because speaking with everyone in a country without any trouble is a pretty unreachable and useless goal, and deciding not to put effort in your language learning because of that is just good old perfectionism. As a native speaker of Croatian I can't speak with Istrians, most islanders, and people from Međimurje without them adjusting their accent.

Well you wouldn't learn English in Yorkshire, would you?

There is a specific dialect of Croatian that is actually protected by UNESCO as a world heritage and is spoken only in and around Bednja in Zagorje. This is the famous Bednjanski govor. This is not understood by anyone xD There's actually a clip on RU-vid where a woman is speaking and you have captions written in literal Croatian at the botton so one understands what she's saying. Croatian is beautiful because of these differences ❤️

Just learn the so called "književni hrvatski" the one that is spoken on national TV and radio. Everyone will understand you then. I was born in Zagreb but I have difficulties understand all those different dialects and there are way too many of them. Heck, in Zagorje two neighboring villages can't understand each other! It's a mess. 😂

Nemojte odustati 👍🏻

Man you just need to learn the standard croatian language. The one they will teach you in every class you take in Croatia, i m sure. And then you ll be able to get along even on Hvar i assure you 😁

You shouldn't give up on Croatian Language. Don't try to learn every dialect in Croatia because there is so many for such a small Country. Some words are different in dialects but it is easy to explained each "new" word. Good Luck! You are doing very well.

I felt more or less the same with Slovenian, with 2 million inhabitants and more than 50 different dialects, it can be a nightmare to understand people, but at least by speaking standard Slovenian, you're understood everywhere. I don't fint it as difficult in Croatia, but I think it's mainly because I don't go often to the islands and I stay mainly in bigger cities, which makes standard Croatian mostly enough to understand and be understood. But it's true I had also few occasions not to have a clue what I'm being told!

You should learn "official" Croatian language that everybody knows but nobody speaks, and than expand it with local dialect words when needed. Its almoat the same as Serbian, while local dialects have Italian, German or Turkish versions of words depending on the area.

Completely understandable. As an ESL teacher, I imagine that, if I started to learn English in my late 20s or now in my early 30s (compared to when I really started to learn it, which was at the age of 4 or 5 through Cartoon Network), after moving to England, I'd be floored by the differences between cockney, brummie and other English dialects. Don't feel too bad, many Croatians don't understand each other's dialects as soon as they leave their respective villages or regions, but we make fun of it and get by somehow 😅 In my experience, the most common problem non-native Croatian speakers have is learning the 7 noun-cases (padeži). I was somehow expecting you to mention them, but since you speak Russian and German, I suppose you're familiar enough with them.

Great video and I totally understand you. But I think it's a shame you gave up on it precisely because of what you experienced - the cultural and historical richness of the language. In my opinion, it's one of the finest treasures we have.

SAT is not "time" but HOUR (...or wristwatch, or clock)

What a great video, thank you! 😊😊 Totally understandeable! All this is similar in some other countries BUT the difference with Croatia is that it is such a small country that u drive 10min away and poof a different dialect ... so its all blended Especially dalmatian and istrian part so many dialects 😊😊🍀🦋 continental part is thankfully much different, there can be some words not the same but us in the continental part dont really have "i have no idea what youre saying" moments 😅 or rarely

U Sloveniji sela znaju biti udaljena tek par-sto metara, doslovno I svako ima svoj dijalekt (!)

Yeah this video just makes sense - even here there are just some dialect words even professors stick with and might not correct you when saying it because it probably also slips their minds. It reminds me of the time I ( A Dalmatian ) went to Zagreb to take care of some business and when I went to the supermarket to buy some pasta and asked the lady working there where they keep their "Manistra" she was as confused as the businessman you talked to.

Of all the places one could try to learn Croatian, this poor dude landed in Hvar 😅 It's almost like a different language there My whole family is from Split, but my mom had complications during pregnancy so she had to go and stay in a hospital in Zagreb. She always tells me stories about how she had to learn all kinds of new words for objects and stuff

Nemojte odustati od učenja hrvatskog. Trebate otići i boraviti u Slavoniji i onda ćete sve lako naučiti kako treba

Thats true, i feel you. Im from Slavonia, studied in Rijeka and had a lot of friends from Istria. First month I didnt understand them at all 😄 also my cousins from Zadar, they are speaking Dalmatian and sometimes I need to ask them to tell the word on "real Croatian". But thats also one of the things why Croatia is so unique! Greetings and dont stop learning :)

Dear Paul, Little correction:sat meaning watch, time is to be said vrijeme. Hatts of for your job

Great content, sir! Greetings from Belgrade, Serbia.

I was expecting something hard from the grammar like continuous verb pairs or some difficult verb tense, but this... yeah, dialects are often tough to the Croatians as well, so don't feel too bad about having difficulties with them. I live near Zagreb and sometimes have trouble understanding people from Međimurje or Dalmatia. Cheers 👋

In my part of Slavonija in Coratia you would say (Kopca) for that laundry thing

But the way you can counter dialect is by looking at core of the word, because words have logical naming. Now this wont work fully not even to a good degree, but the more you see the connections it can get easier

great lesson, thank you!- i sent this video to my love in california

Learn štokavian (the basis for the standardised Croatian language) and you'll be understood in the whole country

In small cities and villages, it is normal to speak in dialect, but the people there will understand you if you speak literary Croatian. The Dalmatian dialect has some similarities with the Istrian dialect, we say also 'miljar' for one thousand :)))

I'm from Northern Ireland and we live here. My partner is Croatian (Zagreb) and our 18 months old daughter understands croatian, I try to keep up with what she learns, but will soon need to actively teach myself to get a headstart on her. Of course my daughter will naturally pick up English because of living in Belfast, but I'd still like to be able to talk to her in Croatian as she grows up. Would you have any advice for me? I have found some things in my Croatian text books that my partner doesn't understand or she says it's wrong 😅 So I can see there's discrepancies between what is taught and what is colloquially understood.

I learned to speak Serbian and everybody in the Balkans understands me.

Wow that was very interesting.

Interesting video. I agree that spelling is much more logical than in English, but I wouldn't say that there is only a few exceptions regarding the grammar rules in general. It's FULL of exceptions and complex rules. My fiancé is a linguist from Slovakia (who also speaks fluent Czech, Bulgarian and English) and she finds Croatian to be very very difficult. Also, how come you didn't learn the standard Croatian? No matter where a Croat is from - they ditch the dialect and speak in standard Cro when needed.

Mmh, that does not seem a rational decision to me. There is a standard Croatian, used in the media and understood all over the country, irrespective of dialects. You simply have to learn that. Dialects that are quite different from the standard language probably exist in all languages. You know German. I am a German living in Switzerland. I can sing a song about it, as a German saying goes (ich kann ein Lied davon singen) :-) But although I had a hard time and it took me a few months to understand Swiss-German (or to be precise Berne German) dialect, even in Switzerland the German-speakers all understand standard German, and are able to speak it if necessary. I know Croatia and Croatian a little bit, and I'd say it is the same over there.

We talk main croatian language only when we meet people from other regions in Croatia. In every part of Croatia people speak differently with it's own dialect.

So true, so true... Once I collected 6 or 7 different words for fork: vilica (area around capital city, I also say that), viljuška (standard croatian), perun, pirun and pirul (at the coast)... I don't remmember the rest. Please, continue... 😆

Understandable ❣️ the repair man came the other day, as he spoke I nodded but have no clue of what he said except the awareness where he's from

LOL, you learned Croatian from Frenki! :) I've not seen that man for 20 years, will stop by and say hi when I visit Hvar. A beautiful human being!

I think only Italy has a similar situation with an infinity of dialects and a commonly spoken language that is used by all in order to be able to navigate this mess.

I have just come back form the 3 months stay in UK. I had very hard time with Scottish dialect and a less hard time in northern England. In UK there are also dialects but I've been unterstood by everyone becuse I tried to speak school (standard) English. Variety of dialects seem to be present eveywhere in the world. When it comes to English, I always like to help myself with the Cambridge dictionary online. The best idea is enrolling in a language course and learning a dialect during pastime hours. :)

Here is the guy I spent most of my time learning the language with in the cafe in Jelsa. Can you understand him, or the lady from the forest in Zagorje? ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-xU_aXyla6vg.html

I'm Brit living in Slovenia, and I struggle with Slovene. At least Croatians say their numbers the right way round and don't use dual form.

And now I've learned a new 'Croatian' word (štipunica) FYI : we on the west coast of Istria call it ŠČAPIN

Nemojte odustati!💪💪

Yee i can see it but look If you learn štokavski dialect you are prolly good to go for about 90% of language becouse it is an offical school and goverment dialect ofc there are many variatons of 3 main ones (ćakavski,kajkavski and štokavski) but i dont thats a good reason to give up on it

I was born and raised in Zagreb (both my parents were born here too so they spoke like typical Zagrebians at home) and I spent my summers near Jelsa on Hvar. And for people to understand me on Hvar I had to kind of learn a new language. Also my boyfriend was born in Zagreb, but his parents are from Bosnia and he grew up learning their mixed dialect so we frequently use different words for the same thing. For example I'd day sauger (from German, typically used in Zagreb) for a vacuum cleaner, he'd say usisivač. And he'd make fun of me for that. At university we had a bunch of people from all parts of the country and sometimes it was impossible for us to understand each other and we'd have to write stuff down or translate it to English to understand. Also if you want to say tomato, in Zagreb we'd say paradajz, on Hvar they'd say pomidori, and in the standard language it's rajčica. So I understand your frustration with it.

2:43 the way he said it

Interesting to see this side of the story as I'm Croatian looking up learning Gaeilge. You're kind of right and kind of wrong at the same time, there are dialectal differences for sure but 90+ percent of the language is the same among most dialects. The odd ones out being from Medjimurje and some islands. The issue you got into was learning in Hvar, which is very different than most of Dalmatia, pretty much all mainland. The further the islands go the more dialectal they become (my grandmother was from Vis which is similar to Hvar in dialect, I understand it but most people don't). So apart from the islands and Medjimurje you can talk to everyone else with small differences in a few words, which you can always ask "what does this mean". When I studied in Zagreb I would ask what I didn't understand but it was minimal, mostly because they have germanisms as opposed to italianisms. As a comparison, I'm fluent in English (native level) but when I moved to Ireland there were a number of irish words and expressions I didn't understand, I learned them over time. Then I would visit a different county and they would use their own local words I didn't understand, dialectal - it's just the beauty of the language, doesn't mean we couldn't communicate just because I didn't understand a word or two. It's a shame you gave up learning Croatian if you liked it, not that I'm a huge fan of Croatian personally but it's nice to be able to speak to everyone you want in their own language. Not everyone knows English. Best of luck to you!

Thank you for sharing this. I learnt German in about 4-5 years just by living there and it was good enough to teach children to read in German. I have now lived in Croatia for 7 years and I still can’t hold a decent conversation. I’m starting to wonder what’s wrong with me.

As a Croat, even for us it's hard to understand other dialects of our own language sometimes. For example for me it's completely normal to say "katriga" for chair(sjedalica), but my friend had no idea what I was talking about 😆

I laughed so much. Just buy the normal textbooks with audio course for the official Croatian for foreigners. There are also "cluster language" options by Yale University Press called "BCS" (bosnian/croatian/serbian), or British ones BCMS (they accepted to write Montenegrin too lol), or the ones published in Zagreb or Sarajevo also called "BCS for foreigners". There are also Finnish but idk whether they are only in English, or its half in Finnish, I just learned about them, and they also called it BCMS. I've had them before for my students and they are VERY effective to foreigners. I know that most of them provided exact linguistical maps which teach the student which dialect or grammar style is spoken where. Some even introduce a student to some chunks of history. It can be useful for people who tour South Slavic areas. But most importantly, the courses teach official language, with official grammar, not small dialects and localisms, which you will never really need. Actually being from the mainland, I can't understand Hvar localisms. But I'm pretty sure they have easier time understanding the official language when they must have it in school and institutions, and Tv is in official language, afterall. So... It's not a waste of time to learn official language at all. Just refocus on the official language :).

I can agree that the dialect things is very confusing. The only reason I learned it was becuase my dad was already speaking a mix of two dialects and my mom spoke a completely different one and I ended up living in zagreb which gave me the most common words. If I was learning Croatia at an older age I would give up.

Haha Paul, after learning Hvar dialect you decided to change the environment and went to Varaždin - a former Kajkavski capital: :'))

I live in Croatia now and totally agree !

I am from Slavonski Brod and the word for a peg is kvačica 😂 However, in a conversation about clothes, where I have an idea of the context etc I would absolutely understand štipunica even though I have never heard of this word until now. The problem is when you take a word out of the context or the is no context whatsoever. If you just told me to guess what štipunica means without any mention of laundry, chances are I would not know exactly but I would be able to guess it is something that can pinch things.

Yes you're so right! Puno Hvala. Having worked in Indonesia, standard Bahasa Indonesian is very similar to standard Hrvatska (yes I'm aware of the inherent danger there!) and in pronunciation follows many of the same rules as in Croatia. Vowels are exactly the same. When I speak my little bits of Bahasa I am often stopped by Indonesians who ask me if I grew up in Indonesia! LOL

“Sat” is watch or clock it’s depend what you saying in sentence. “time” is vrijeme and/or vremena

Here its Štipavica. Not even a 80km from split haha. As counterweight, we need one Bradbury that grew up in dalmatian Hinterland haha

I have this EXACT problem with Croatian lol. (I dont wosh to give up though). I work in a tech company in Ireland, almost all my peers are from every corner of the world. And over the years, I grew to appreciate all the idiosyncratic ways people speak English as they understand how to self-translate. I've had the softest spot for Croatians, I like how direct and blunt they can be which is refreshing as Irish people tend to be relentlessly polite. I became curious about the language, and as my partner is Croatian with parents that do not speak any English, if I'm ever gonna talk to them it'll have to be in Hrvatski. They're from Benkovac and i need to get used to that dialect. I was fond of the story of how well your daughter could spell Croatian from the sounds of the words. I am a HUGE fan of the fact that all the letters have the same pronunciation in the words they build. It reminds me of Spanish in that way, especially as there's few double consonants and vowels. English is wonderful to speak and eloquently creative but the word pronunciation conventions are so frustrating even in my 30s. For as varied and challenging Croatian can be, I've found it easier to grasp than Irish after spending 12 years trying to learn it. Our dialect differences are about as crazy as theirs lol.

My grandfather was from Gorski Kotar in Croatia from a place called Prezid. When he would speak in his dialect it was impossible to tell what he was saying. The dialect is a mix of Croatian ikavica on a čajkavski dialect with mixed words from both Slovenian and Italian. Mind you, I came from a household with mixed dialects - my dad and his family were from the Zadar region, while mum's side, on grandma's side was from Zagorje, and still grandad's dialect was nothing I've ever heard.

What dialect they use on the island called Ponistra?

The problem is the way they usually teach Croatian in textbooks and language courses for foreigners - it's always just the stuck up formal standard. No colloquial language. And that's not the way people actually speak. Of course, if you land on an island, you have one more language to learn - the local Čakavian dialect :) Btw. as somebody said below - "štipunica" will not be understood outside of Split (or some parts of Dalmatia), but "štipaljka" and "kvačica" will mostly be understood everywhere. But this is a "house word" that people don't really use much in public. In other cases, people from Zagreb will know a lot of Split words and vice-versa. Or if they don't, they will switch to some kind of standard dialect.

I'm trying to learn Croatian. Are there any beginner friendly materials on RU-vid?

True dat. Istina.

Sat is clock, time is vrijeme

Ten years with a Croatian wife. But the challenge for me has been vocabulary. In Zagreb I understand many words with a German root, and as a Muslim many words with an Arabic root. But being almost 50 the first time I came here it was more difficult to learn Slavic vocabulary for the first time.

I'm sure this is just a good story for a video or an article, as Paul seems to speak and understand Croatian fluently already (which I would expect from somebody who speaks another slavic language, and also learned the Hvar dialect by themselves). One thing not mentioned in the video that I did notice with a lot of expats is they rarely bother learning more than a couple of phrases, since there's no incentive to do this as most of the population here speaks good or very good English. In my view this is a way to miss out on a lot of culture, but I can understand the convenience it provides people.

I'm 42, borne and raised in Croatia in area around Zagreb; year and half ago, I started to work in Rijeka and i learn new words daily and it's frustrating at moments.😀 So, I can only imagine how it must feel for a brit 😄😁

never give up Paul.....one day it'll all make sense....it's the same in English....I always thought think is pronounced think, but it's not, many say fink....

Well TBH in Hvar every town or vilige has a diferente dijalect. So i cant blame you im from Hvasr Hvar Krizna Luka

We Kajkavian CRO learn Croatian from dialectes to standard one all our life. But you shoul'd learn standard one.

I fact you were learning the most original form of Croatian language by speaking in the island dialect. I'm from the island of Pag, and we speak similar dialect as people from Hvar.

Visited Croatia last year. In my 42 years, I have never experienced so many unfriendly people. Two weeks I will never get back in my life. Then I read somewhere that in the last 15 years somewhere around 500 000 croats have moved abroad looking for better life. Country of a population of 3,5 mill.

Gotta learn them all!

Yes, but if you learn the standard Croatian you can easily communicate pretty much everywhere in the country as well as surrounding countries like Bosnia, Montenegro and Serbia. Most people tend to understand the standard even if they don't necessarily speak it.

You could do without the background music, sir. I like listening to your voice and what you have to say. Greetings from a fellow expat.

Štipunica/Štipaljka, we in Zagreb and the rest of northern area would say "Kvačica" and so far I thought it was an official word, but I'm not sure...

I don't really see a good reason to give up here, to be honest. You could just focus on learning standard Croatian online or with a teacher if you have access to it. It seems your wife is Croatian and you could ask her to teach you the standard. Naturally, you might pick up some local dialectal features and end up inserting them into your standard Croatian, but I think Croats are probably quite used to that (they possibly do so themselves) and you could just clarify what you meant (you could try using different synonyms or looking up the standard term). I have read that standard literary Croatian has some words that are quite different from colloquial varieties, but it's not like they're completely different languages and any language has synonyms. Those two words for clothes peg that you mentioned seem to have a common base, just slightly different suffixation or endings. The dialectal differences are like how some English speakers say "boot" while others call that part of the car a "trunk". Even if you may only use one term, you understand the other through exposure. And as far as I know, British dialects are even more varied. Those dialects should be quite similar to each other (at least ones in the same region). When communicating with people in nearby localities, even if they speak somewhat differently, the dialect you learned where you live could possibly be quite understandable to them. And then you can use the standard for talking with people from places further away with overly different dialects. And it's not like the standard is completely different from the dialects (they should at the very least have fundamental similarities).

Sat is actually clock and vrijeme is time.

you are great, video is great. you made just one tiny mistake, "sat" is not a "time", "sat" means watch or clock, depends what you prefer :)

I'm Croatian(half Zagreb half island Pag), you are funny man and you laughed me so well. Cheers 😇

What a splendid experience! But there is still the standard language that everyone understands, so it can be learned though. But somehow I suppose how you must be feelin'...

The language is actually called Serbo-Croatian, and it is spoken in several countries ( Bosnia, Croatia, Montenegro and Serbia). Each country has a main dialect and many regional ones. Incorrectly these dialects are now being labeled as separate languages ( mainly because of political reasons). Can you imagine someone deciding to call English spoken in Australia - Australian or the one spoken in US - American? Basically that is what happened to Serbo-Croatian language. Had you persisted and continued to learn the language, you would be able to understand people from all the mentioned countries and to some extent from Macedonia and Bulgaria.

Točno. Fonetički jezik, jedan glas (zvuk)- jedan znak. Za razliku od npr. njemačkog, u kojem zvuk "č", četiri znaka treba: tsch. Što se tiče dijalekata, to ste u pravu, može se desiti da idete 30 km do drugog mjesta i da čujete potpuno druge izraze. Svi krajevi Hrvatske su puni toga, a u Dalmaciji ćete naći mješavinu našega jezika, italijanskog, turskog i nešto malo arapskog. U riječima dijalekta. Otočani su još simpatičniji, oni su razvili mjestimice svoj način komunikacije. 😍

I live near to the Zagreb,and I understand "štipaljka"what is,but never heard the another word.

Just learn formal croatian, pretty much everyone in croatia understands it.

Seriously, this kind of thing happens in many countries. Maybe all countries. Regional variations are common. I come from county Durham. I bet it wouldn't take me long to say something in English that Paul Bradbury didn't understand.

As a Croatian woman I say "Razumljivo" (understandable). 😁

I am from a small village 25km south of Šibenik and I speak the local dialect. For example : Kukumar, pomidora, kapula, tovar. I know your struggle 😂

I feel this. I’m learning serbo-Croatian because my mother is fluent in the language. Truly such a complicated language. It’s so logical that I have a hard time translating it into English sometimes because of how complex every sentence is.

Greetings from Croatia! Well the easiest dialect would be the Štokavski dialect, it's the easiest to understand.

Sat is hour or clock depends on the context, vrijeme is time.

Just to add to other comments here, most of which i agree with, im sure noone is going to give you a hard time for having issues with dialect words. I think we are happy to see foreignes speak usable language, over time you will learn dialect words of places where you usually stay and should have no issues Im from eastern croatia and though visiting other places always mean little different dialect, its never been a big issue. Have to admit any place on the coast does feel very different, but language is still functional. Visiting zagreb on the other hand feels almost like home, but maybe because i personally like their accent