Pridjevi: Adjectives
An adjective (pridjev) says something about a word: big, new, beautiful. In Croatian it adapts to the word: to the gender from lesson 2 and to singular or plural from lesson 7. You actually know it already: Dobar dan, Dobra večer and Dobro jutro are three forms of the same word.
The endings
| masculine | feminine | neuter | |
|---|---|---|---|
| singular | dobar Ø | dobra -a | dobro -o |
| plural | dobri -i | dobre -e | dobra -a |
Look familiar? The plural takes the same endings as the nouns themselves in lesson 7: -i, -e, -a. So they go together: dobri studenti, dobre kuće, dobra sela.
Before the noun or after je / su
The adjective can come before the noun or after it, after je or su. The form is the same in both cases.
- velika kuća Kuća je velika.a big house · The house is big.
- novo selo Selo je novo.a new village · The village is new.
- stare kuće Kuće su stare.old houses · The houses are old.
Common adjectives
masculine · feminine · neuter- dobar · dobra · dobrogood
- loš · loša · lošebad
- velik · velika · velikobig
- malen · malena · malenosmall
- nov · nova · novonew
- star · stara · staroold
- lijep · lijepa · lijepobeautiful
- skup · skupa · skupoexpensive
- jeftin · jeftina · jeftinocheap
- hladan · hladna · hladnocold
- umoran · umorna · umornotired
- sretan · sretna · sretnohappy
Colours
Colours are adjectives too, so they simply change along: crvena jabuka (a red apple), plavo more (a blue sea), zeleni gradovi… Watch smeđ → smeđe: -e after the soft đ.
- crven · crvena · crvenored
- plav · plava · plavoblue
- zelen · zelena · zelenogreen
- žut · žuta · žutoyellow
- crn · crna · crnoblack
- bijel · bijela · bijelowhite
- smeđ · smeđa · smeđebrown
- siv · siva · sivogrey
- narančast · narančasta · narančastoorange
- ružičast · ružičasta · ružičastopink
Two things to watch out for
- The a drops out. In a few words the a disappears when an ending is added: dobar → dobra, umoran → umorna, sretan → sretna, hladan → hladna.
- -e after a soft letter. Just like polje and more in lesson 2, the neuter -o becomes -e after a soft letter: loš → loše.
Before a masculine noun you often hear a form ending in -i: veliki grad, novi stan. It means “the big city”, “the new flat”. For now, velik grad is perfectly fine too; the difference comes later.
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