The future tense in the Croatian language, interrogative
...or how to ask if somebody WILL do something

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One more easy Croatian lesson to learn! In order to make a question in the future (futur prvi), you need to use the interrogative form of the htjeti (will) + the main verb in the

INTERROGATIVE FUTURE TENSE = INTERROGATIVE HTJETI (WILL) + MAIN VERB IN
INFINITIVE

Here is what the interrogative form of the verb htjeti (will) looks like:

Glagol htjeti – upitni oblik
The verb will – interrogative form
Jednina
Singular
Množina
Plural
1. Hoću li (ja)? Will I? 1. Hoćemo li (mi)? Will we?
2. Hoćeš li (ti)? Will you? 2. Hoćete li (vi)? Will you?
3. Hoće li (on)? Will he (m.)? 3. Hoće li (oni)? Will they (m.)?
Hoće li (ona)? Will she (f.)? Hoće li (one)? Will they (f.)?
Hoće li (ono)? Will it (n.)? Hoće li (ona)? Will they (n.)?

As you already might guess, you just need to add the infinitive form of the main verb to one of the forms of the verb htjeti (will) from above. So:

Futur prvi glagola učiti – upitni oblik
The future tense of the verb to learn – interrogative form
Jednina
Singular
Množina
Plural
1. Hoću li (ja) učiti? Will I learn? 1. Hoćemo li (mi) učiti? Will we learn?
2. Hoćeš li (ti) učiti? Will you learn? 2. Hoćete li (vi) učiti? Will you learn?
3. Hoće li (on) učiti? Will he (m.) learn? 3. Hoće li (oni) učiti? Will they (m.) learn?
Hoće li (ona) učiti? Will she (f.) learn? Hoće li (one) učiti? Will they (f.) learn?
Hoće li (ono) učiti?* Will it (n.) learn? Hoće li (ona) učiti? Will they (n.) learn?

*In Croatian, ono (it) does not refer to an object, but to any neuter noun, even if it means a person, like dijete (child). So, Hoće li (ono) učiti? can mean Hoće li dijete učiti?

Let’s have a look at some more examples: 
Hoćeš li (ti) doći popodne na ručak? – Will you come for lunch this afternoon? 
Hoće li Ana sutra preseliti u novi stan? – Will Ana move to the new apartment tomorrow? 
Hoćete li (vi) donijeti bocu vina? – Will you bring a glass of wine? 
Hoće li (oni) kupiti kuću u Hrvatskoj? – Will they buy a house in Croatia?

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(in brackets in the examples above) can be expressed, but they can also be omitted if it’s obvious from the context who we are talking about. For more details about this topic you might want to see our student Bob’s blog post Where are the pronouns

As we have already mentioned in our previous posts, Croatian makes no difference between will, shall or going to future constructions, so the sentence Hoćemo li (mi) plivati? can also be translated as Shall we swim? or Are we going to swim?

As some of the exercises above can have more than one possible answer, feel free to ask questions in the comments below and check if your answers are OK, we’ll give our best to answer your questions as soon as possible. 

If you would like to practice this online with a teacher one-on-one, don’t hesitate to book your free trial lesson here. 

Learning Croatian continues… Next Tuesday we are learning about making questions using interrogative pronouns. If you want us to send you an email with the next Croatian grammar lesson, put your email address here.

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