Iznimke: Gender: the exceptions
Before you start
This lesson is definitely not the most important one: you can carry on fine without knowing everything here. But it is good to know and to practise. When you later see these words with an adjective, you will understand why it has a masculine, feminine or neuter ending: dobar tata, dobra večer, dobro ime.
In lesson 2 you learned to recognise gender from the last letter: a consonant is masculine, -a feminine, -o or -e neuter. That is very often right, but not always. The good news: the exceptions fall into a few clear groups. Once you know them, you will almost always get it right.
Not sure? Look at the word in front
You hear the real gender in the word in front: jedan / jedna / jedno from lesson 6, or an adjective from lesson 8, such as dobar / dobra / dobro (good). That is why you say dobar tata (masculine), but dobra večer (feminine).
1. Masculine, but ending in -a: men
Words for men are masculine, even when they end in -a. The same goes for boys’ names like Luka, Nikola and Ivica. The plural does follow the form, like feminine words: tata → tate, kolega → kolege.
| Word (sing.) | Plural | Meaning | How you say it |
|---|---|---|---|
| tata | tate | dad | jedan tata |
| kolega | kolege | colleague (man) | jedan kolega |
| Luka | – | Luka (boy’s name) | Luka je umoran. |
2. Feminine, but ending in a consonant
A group of feminine words ends in a consonant. It is best to simply learn them by heart. večer is one of them: that is why it is Dobra večer. Watch the plural: even though they are feminine, they take -i, just like masculine words: noć → noći, stvar → stvari.
| Word (sing.) | Plural | Meaning | How you say it |
|---|---|---|---|
| noć | noći | night | jedna noć |
| večer | večeri | evening | jedna večer |
| stvar | stvari | thing | jedna stvar |
| ljubav | ljubavi | love | jedna ljubav |
| sol | soli | salt | jedna sol |
| riječ | riječi | word | jedna riječ |
3. Handy rule: -ost is always feminine
All words ending in -ost (and most ending in -est) are feminine. There are lots of them: mladost (youth), mogućnost (possibility), kost (bone)… Here too the plural takes -i, just like masculine words: radost → radosti.
| Word (sing.) | Plural | Meaning | How you say it |
|---|---|---|---|
| radost | radosti | joy | jedna radost |
| bolest | bolesti | illness | jedna bolest |
| vijest | vijesti | piece of news | jedna vijest |
4. Masculine, but ending in a vowel
Loanwords ending in -o or -i are usually masculine, and so are boys’ names ending in -o or -e: Marko, Ivo, Hrvoje.
| Word (sing.) | Plural | Meaning | How you say it |
|---|---|---|---|
| auto | auti | car | jedan auto |
| radio | radiji | radio | jedan radio |
| taksi | taksiji | taxi | jedan taksi |
| Marko | – | Marko (boy’s name) | Marko je sretan. |
| Hrvoje | – | Hrvoje (boy’s name) | Hrvoje je gladan. |
5. Neuter in -e, without a soft letter
Normally a neuter word only takes -e after a soft letter (polje, srce). These words have -e without a soft letter, and are still simply neuter. You already knew more from lesson 2.
| Word (sing.) | Plural | Meaning | How you say it |
|---|---|---|---|
| more | mora | sea | jedno more |
| ime | imena | name | jedno ime |
| vrijeme | vremena | time; weather | jedno vrijeme |
| rame | ramena | shoulder | jedno rame |
| dijete | djeca | child | jedno dijete |
6. Only in the plural
Some words only exist in the plural (lesson 7), even when it is about one thing, like the English “scissors” and “trousers”. That is why you use su: Gdje su naočale? (Where are the glasses?) Vrata su tamo. (The door is there.) From topic 1 you already know two: usta and leđa.
| Word (sing.) | Plural | Meaning | How you say it |
|---|---|---|---|
| vrata | – | door | Gdje su vrata? |
| novine | – | newspaper | Gdje su novine? |
| naočale | – | glasses | Gdje su naočale? |
| hlače | – | trousers | Gdje su hlače? |
| škare | – | scissors | Gdje su škare? |
You sometimes hear dobar večer. That is mainly said in Serbia and Bosnia, where večer is masculine. In standard Croatian it is dobra večer.
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