Instrumental: Means and Accompaniment | Croatian Grammar

The instrumental has two everyday jobs that English crams into a single word — with. One is the means: the tool, vehicle, or material you do something by or with (pišem olovkom, "I write with a pencil"). The other is accompaniment: the person or thing you are together with (idem s prijateljem, "I go with a friend"). Croatian keeps these apart by one tiny but absolute signal: the means takes a bare instrumental with no preposition, while accompaniment takes the preposition s/sa before the instrumental. Get this one contrast right and you avoid the single most common instrumental error English speakers make.

Function 1: means and instrument — no preposition

When the noun is the tool, vehicle, material, or method by which an action is carried out, you put it in the instrumental with no preposition at all. The case ending alone says "by means of."

Pišem olovkom jer mi je penkala ostala kod kuće.

I'm writing with a pencil because I left my fountain pen at home. — 'olovkom' = the instrument, bare instrumental.

Putujem vlakom do Splita, brže je nego autom.

I'm travelling to Split by train, it's faster than by car. — 'vlakom' and 'autom' = means of transport, no preposition.

Idem na posao biciklom kad je lijepo vrijeme.

I go to work by bike when the weather's nice. — 'biciklom' = the vehicle, bare instrumental.

This covers a wide territory. The instrument of an action (rezati nožem — cut with a knife), the vehicle of travel (ići autom, putovati avionom — go by car, travel by plane), the body part you act with (mahati rukom — wave with your hand), the material you fill or cover something with (napuniti vodom — fill with water), and even the medium of language (govoriti hrvatskim jezikom — speak in / with the Croatian language).

Maše rukom s druge strane ulice.

She's waving with her hand from the other side of the street. — body part as instrument, bare 'rukom'.

Na sastanku se govorilo isključivo engleskim jezikom.

At the meeting only English was spoken. — the language as the medium, bare 'engleskim jezikom'.

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If you can rephrase the English "with" as "by means of" or "using" — "I write using a pencil," "I travel by means of a train" — then it is the means, and you use the bare instrumental with NO s. This single test settles most cases instantly.

Function 2: accompaniment — s / sa + instrumental

When the noun is the company you are with — the person, animal, or thing alongside you — you use the preposition s (or its variant sa) followed by the instrumental. Here the s is obligatory; without it the sentence either changes meaning or breaks.

Idem u kino s prijateljem večeras.

I'm going to the cinema with a friend tonight. — accompaniment, 's' + instrumental 'prijateljem'.

Volim kavu s mlijekom, bez šećera.

I like coffee with milk, no sugar. — the milk accompanies the coffee, so 's' + 'mlijekom'.

Živi s roditeljima dok ne nađe stan.

He lives with his parents until he finds a flat. — accompaniment, 's' + instrumental plural 'roditeljima'.

The "company" reading stretches naturally to abstract togetherness — doing something with care, with pleasure, with difficulty:

Pozdravili su goste s velikim osmijehom.

They greeted the guests with a big smile. — manner/accompaniment, 's' + 'osmijehom'.

S nestrpljenjem čekamo vaš odgovor.

We await your reply with impatience. — fixed manner phrase, 's' + 'nestrpljenjem'. (formal)

The make-or-break contrast: tool vs company

Here is the whole point of the page, in minimal pairs. English uses with for both; Croatian uses bare instrumental for the tool and s + instrumental for the company. Watch what changes:

English "with"	Means (tool) — NO s	Accompaniment (company) — s
cut with a knife / sit with a friend	Režem nožem.	Sjedim s prijateljem.
write with a pen / write with a colleague	Pišem olovkom.	Pišem članak s kolegom.
travel by train / travel with a friend	Putujem vlakom.	Putujem s prijateljem.
eat with a fork / eat with the family	Jedem vilicom.	Jedem s obitelji.

Otvorio je konzervu nožem, a onda je ručao s nama.

He opened the can with a knife, and then had lunch with us. — tool 'nožem' (no s) vs company 's nama' (with s), in one sentence.

The logic is clean once you see it: a tool is something you act through, an extension of the verb; company is something you are alongside, a second participant. Croatian marks the difference by whether there is a preposition between you and the noun. The case (instrumental) is the same — it is the s that does the distinguishing.

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The presence or absence of s is the entire difference between "with a knife" (tool, no s) and "with a friend" (company, s). English collapses them into one word, so this is a guaranteed transfer error — drill the pairs until "I travel by train" and "I travel with a friend" feel like two different grammars.

When s becomes sa

The preposition has two shapes: plain s and the longer sa. You use sa when the following word would otherwise be hard to pronounce after a lone s — specifically before words beginning with s, š, z, ž (the sibilants that clash with s), before certain awkward consonant clusters, and before the pronoun mnom:

Use sa before…	Example
s / š / z / ž	sa sestrom, sa Šimom, sa zidom, sa ženom
the pronoun mnom	sa mnom
awkward clusters	sa psom, sa mnogima

Everywhere else, plain s is standard: s prijateljem, s mlijekom, s autom, s tobom.

Hoćeš li poći sa mnom na tržnicu?

Will you come with me to the market? — 'sa mnom', always with the long form before 'mnom'.

Razgovarala je sa sestrom cijelo poslijepodne.

She talked with her sister all afternoon. — 'sa sestrom', long form before s-.

Šeta sa psom svako jutro u parku.

He walks the dog every morning in the park. — 'sa psom', long form before the cluster 'ps-'.

The choice between s and sa is purely phonetic — it never changes the meaning, and the noun stays in the instrumental either way. More detail lives on the s / sa preposition page.

A caution: not every "with" is the instrumental

Two traps. First, s/sa also means "from / off" when it takes the genitive — s krova ("off the roof"), s posla ("from work"). Same little word, different case, opposite-ish meaning. The instrumental "with" and the genitive "from" are told apart by the case of the noun. Second, some verbs that look like accompaniment actually govern a different construction — for instance "marry" is oženiti se + instrumental but udati se za + accusative depending on who marries whom; those belong on the predicate-uses page.

Skinuo je knjigu s police.

He took the book off the shelf. — 's' + GENITIVE 'police' = 'from/off', not the instrumental 'with'.

Common Mistakes

❌ Putujem s vlakom u Zagreb.

Incorrect — a train is the MEANS of travel, not company, so no 's': 'Putujem vlakom'.

✅ Putujem vlakom u Zagreb.

I'm travelling to Zagreb by train. — bare instrumental for the means.

❌ Idem kino prijateljem.

Incorrect — company needs the preposition 's': 'idem u kino s prijateljem'.

✅ Idem u kino s prijateljem.

I'm going to the cinema with a friend. — 's' + instrumental for accompaniment.

❌ Režem kruh s nožem.

Incorrect — a knife is a tool, so NO 's': 'Režem kruh nožem'.

✅ Režem kruh nožem.

I'm cutting the bread with a knife. — bare instrumental for the instrument.

❌ Dođi s mnom.

Incorrect — before 'mnom' the form must be the long 'sa': 'Dođi sa mnom'.

✅ Dođi sa mnom.

Come with me. — 'sa' before 'mnom'.

❌ Volim kavu mlijekom.

Incorrect — milk accompanies the coffee (company), so it needs 's': 'kava s mlijekom'.

✅ Volim kavu s mlijekom.

I like coffee with milk. — 's' + instrumental.

Key Takeaways

Means / instrument (the tool, vehicle, material, language) → bare instrumental, no preposition: pišem olovkom, putujem vlakom, govorim hrvatskim.
Accompaniment (the person or thing you are with) → s / sa + instrumental: idem s prijateljem, kava s mlijekom.
The presence or absence of s is the whole distinction — English's single "with" splits into two grammars here.
Use sa before s, š, z, ž, before mnom, and before awkward clusters; plain s everywhere else. The choice is phonetic, never semantic.
Watch the false friend: s/sa + genitive means "from / off," not "with."

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