Accusative: Forms | Croatian Grammar

The accusative (akuzativ) is the case of the direct object — what you see, eat, read, love. It is one of the first cases a learner needs, and it has a friendly secret: for most nouns it is identical to a form you already know. Only one declension gets a fully distinct accusative ending; everywhere else the accusative simply borrows the nominative or the genitive. The catch is which one it borrows, and for masculine nouns that depends on a single question — is the noun alive? Making that animacy question a reflex is the whole game.

The singular: only feminine -a is fully distinct

Declension	Accusative singular	Rule
Feminine -a type	žena → ženu, knjiga → knjigu	-u (the only distinct ending)
Masculine inanimate	stol → stol, grad → grad	= nominative
Masculine animate	prijatelj → prijatelja, pas → psa	= genitive
Neuter	selo → selo, more → more	= nominative
Feminine i-type	noć → noć, stvar → stvar	= nominative

Read the table as one clean ending plus three "borrowings":

Feminine -a nouns get the -u — the only accusative ending that is genuinely its own. There is no animacy split and no exception: a woman, a book, water, a hand all take -u (ženu, knjigu, vodu, ruku).
Neuter nouns and feminine i-type nouns just reuse the nominative: selo stays selo, noć stays noć. Nothing to learn.
Masculine nouns split by animacy — the one real decision point, covered next.

Čitam zanimljivu knjigu.

I'm reading an interesting book. — feminine -a accusative 'knjigu' (-u), the one clean ending.

Volim svoju ženu.

I love my wife. — feminine accusative 'ženu' (-u).

Vidim selo u daljini.

I see a village in the distance. — neuter accusative 'selo' = nominative, unchanged.

Cijelu noć nisam spavao.

I didn't sleep all night. — i-type feminine accusative 'noć' = nominative; note 'cijelu' (-u) agrees as feminine -a.

💡

The feminine -a -u is the only accusative ending you actually have to "form" — and it has no animacy split, so it never makes you stop and think. Neuter and i-type feminines reuse the nominative. That leaves just one genuine decision: the masculine animacy split.

Masculine: the animacy split

This is the defining quirk of the Croatian accusative, and the one thing to drill until it is automatic. For masculine nouns, the accusative singular depends on whether the noun is animate (a living being — a person or animal) or inanimate (a thing):

Inanimate masculine → accusative = nominative: stol → stol, grad → grad, auto → auto.
Animate masculine → accusative = genitive (the -a ending): prijatelj → prijatelja, pas → psa, čovjek → čovjeka.

So before you put any masculine noun in the accusative, you ask: is it alive? If yes, use the genitive -a; if no, leave it as the nominative.

Vidim stol.

I see the table. — inanimate masculine; accusative = nominative, 'stol' unchanged.

Vidim prijatelja.

I see my friend. — animate masculine; accusative = genitive 'prijatelja' (-a).

Imam psa.

I have a dog. — animate; accusative = genitive 'psa' (note the fleeting vowel: pas → psa).

Tražim čovjeka koji mi je pomogao.

I'm looking for the man who helped me. — animate accusative 'čovjeka' = genitive.

Kupujem auto, ne motor.

I'm buying a car, not a motorbike. — both inanimate; accusative = nominative, unchanged.

The contrast is sharpest in a single frame. Watch Vidim… run across all four types:

Vidim ženu, prijatelja, stol i selo.

I see a woman, a friend, a table and a village. — feminine -u, animate masculine -a (=gen), inanimate masculine =nom, neuter =nom.

💡

For every masculine noun, make "is it alive?" a reflex before you say the accusative. Alive → genitive -a (prijatelja, psa). Not alive → unchanged (stol, grad). This is the same animacy split you met for nouns; the full logic, including edge cases, is at masculine animacy.

The plural

The accusative plural is simpler — no animacy split survives into the plural. Each declension has one accusative plural form, and for most of them it equals the nominative plural:

Declension	Accusative plural	Examples
Masculine	-e	stol → stolove, prijatelj → prijatelje
Feminine -a type	-e	žena → žene, knjiga → knjige
Neuter	-a	selo → sela, more → mora
Feminine i-type	-i	noć → noći, stvar → stvari

For masculine and feminine -a nouns the accusative plural is -e — and it equals the nominative plural, so žene is both "women" (subject) and "women" (object). For neuter it is -a (sela), and for i-type feminines it is -i (noći), both again matching the nominative plural. The animacy question vanishes: Vidim prijatelje and Vidim stolove use the same -e ending regardless of life.

Pozvao sam prijatelje na večeru.

I invited my friends to dinner. — masculine accusative plural 'prijatelje' (-e), no animacy split in the plural.

Kupila je nove stolove za blagovaonicu.

She bought new tables for the dining room. — masculine accusative plural 'stolove' (-e), same ending as the animate.

Vidim žene na trgu.

I see women in the square. — feminine -a accusative plural 'žene' (-e).

Provodimo ljetne noći na terasi.

We spend the summer nights on the terrace. — i-type feminine accusative plural 'noći' (-i).

How this differs from English

English has no accusative ending on nouns at all — "I see the woman / the table / the friend" leaves every noun untouched, and word order alone marks the object. Croatian instead changes the noun, but only meaningfully for one class (the feminine -u), and otherwise recycles the nominative or genitive. The truly alien part for an English speaker is the animacy split: the idea that "I see the friend" and "I see the table" should take different forms, purely because a friend is alive and a table is not, has no counterpart in English. Once you accept that masculine nouns force a living/non-living question, the rest of the accusative is mostly "leave it as it was".

Common Mistakes

❌ Vidim prijatelj.

Incorrect — 'prijatelj' is animate masculine, so the accusative takes the genitive -a: 'prijatelja'.

✅ Vidim prijatelja.

I see my friend. — animate accusative = genitive 'prijatelja'.

❌ Vidim grada.

Incorrect — 'grad' (city) is inanimate, so the accusative equals the nominative: 'grad', not the genitive 'grada'.

✅ Vidim grad.

I see the city. — inanimate accusative = nominative 'grad'.

❌ Volim moja žena.

Incorrect — the feminine -a accusative is -u: 'ženu' (and the possessive becomes 'svoju/moju').

✅ Volim svoju ženu.

I love my wife. — feminine accusative 'ženu' (-u).

❌ Pozvao sam prijatelja na večeru (meaning several friends).

Incorrect for the plural — the accusative plural of 'prijatelj' is 'prijatelje', not the singular 'prijatelja'.

✅ Pozvao sam prijatelje na večeru.

I invited my friends to dinner. — accusative plural 'prijatelje' (-e).

Key Takeaways

Only the feminine -a declension has a fully distinct accusative singular: -u (ženu, knjigu) — and it has no animacy split.
Neuter and i-type feminine nouns reuse the nominative in the accusative (selo, noć).
Masculine nouns split by animacy: animate → genitive -a (prijatelja, psa), inanimate → nominative (stol, grad). Make "is it alive?" a reflex.
The plural drops the animacy split: masculine and feminine -a take -e (prijatelje, žene), neuter -a (sela), i-type feminine -i (noći).

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