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), koliko (how much/many) in interrogative sentences.
Examples:

4. Using adverbs gdje (where), kada (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!