Asking Questions in Croatian

Croatian ⋙ Croatian A1

Welcome to our Croatian course for beginners! In this lesson, we`ll talk about another important aspect that every Croatian language learner should master: how to ask questions correctly.

Interrogative sentences in the Croatian language contain interrogative adverbs, pronouns, particles, a specific word order, and interrogative intonation. From a grammatical perspective, interrogative sentences can be created using the following patterns:

1. Using interrogative intonation (raising the tone on verbs or words that are key in questions).
Examples:

2. Using particles li, da, zar in interrogative sentences.
For example:

3. Using interrogative pronouns tko (who), što (what), čiji (whose), koji (which), kakav (what kind of), kolik(o) (how much/many) in interrogative sentences.
Examples:

4. Using adverbs gdje (where), kad(a) (when), kamo (where - destination), kuda (where - direction), odakle (where from), zašto (why) in interrogative sentences.
Examples:

It`s worth mentioning that the methods of forming interrogative sentences are different from those used in English.

Next, let`s look at the general word order in a simple interrogative sentence. In most cases, the formula for constructing an interrogative phrase looks like this:
the predicate comes first, followed by the interrogative particle "li".
For example:

There`s a difference when the predicate is a form of the verb "biti" (to be) - in this case, the full (not abbreviated) form of the verb "biti" is placed in the first position in the sentence:


In summary, forming questions in Croatian doesn`t have very difficult features that are unclear to students. The difference lies in other interrogative words and grammatical features, which may make some question forms look a little unusual. We hope it has been helpful and good luck with your studies!