What are adverbs?

Adverbs are words that give more information about some happening or action: how, how often, in what circumstances, etc. And, what’s best – they never change their form! Yay!

Adverbs can go with various sorts of words, such as:

a) verbs 

For example:
Dobro pleše. – He/she is dancing well.

b) adjectives

For example:
Soparnik je jako slan. – Soparnik is very salty.

c) adverbs 

For example:
Marko govori previše glasno. – Marko speaks too loudly.

d) whole sentences

For example:
Naravno, volim slavonski kulen. – Of course, I love Slavonian kulen.

What types of adverbs are there in the Croatian language?

Some of the most frequent types of adverbs in the Croatian language are: 

Adverbs of time:

prekjučer (the day before yesterday), jučer (yesterday), sutra (tomorrow), preksutra (the day after tomorrow), sad(a) (now), konačno (eventually)… 

For example:
Jučer sam jela suhe smokve. – I ate dried figs yesterday.

Adverbs of place: 

dolje (down), gore (up), ovdje (here), blizu (near), daleko (far), doma (at home)… 

For example:
Plaža je blizu. – The beach is near.

Adverbs of manner:

tiho (quietly), nasumce (randomly), rado (gladly), naoko (seemingly), potajno (secretly)… 

For example: 
Rado razgovaram s rođacima. – I gladly talk with my relatives.

Adverbs of quantity:

još (more), malo (a little), vrlo (very), dvaput (twice), triput (three times)… 

For example:
Dvaput sam bio u Hrvatskoj. – I have been in Croatia twice.

Adverbs of cause: 

zato (that’s why), stoga (therefore)… 

For example: 
Zato želim naučiti hrvatski. – That’s why I want to learn Croatian.

Linking words: 

možda (maybe), ipak (although), dakle (so), vjerojatno (probably), navodno (supposedly)… 

For example: 
Možda sutra idemo na izlet. – Maybe we’ll go for a day trip tomorrow.

Adverbial expressions: 

jednom riječju (in one word), prema tome (according to that), sve u svemu (all in all), osim toga (besides that), na svu sreću (luckily)… 

For example: 
Sve u svemu, hrvatski nije previše težak. – All in all, Croatian is not too hard. 

What would you say, is Croatian hard to learn or not? 

Learning Croatian continues… Next Tuesday we are focusing a bit more on the adverbs of time. If you want us to send you an email with the next Croatian grammar lesson, put your email address here.

 If you want to learn Croatian online with a teacher one-on-one, don’t hesitate to book your free trial lesson here.