Instrumental: Location, Time, and Predicate Uses

Beyond the tool and the companion, the instrumental does three more jobs that round out its profile: it marks static position after a set of spatial prepositions, it expresses certain time and route relations on its own, and it serves as a predicate with verbs of becoming, considering, and engaging in. These are the uses that take you from recognising the instrumental to using it like a speaker — and the predicate use in particular (bavim se glazbom, "I do music") is the everyday way Croatian says what you do for a living or a hobby.

Static position: pod, nad, pred, za, među

Five spatial prepositions — pod (under), nad (above/over), pred (in front of), za (behind), među (among/between) — are two-case prepositions. With the accusative they mean motion toward a position; with the instrumental they mean rest at that position. The instrumental is the "where is it?" half of each pair.

The contrast with the accusative is razor-sharp. Compare the same preposition, two cases:

Note that u and na belong to the same two-case family but take the locative (not the instrumental) for their rest reading — u gradu, na stolu. The instrumental is the rest-case only for pod, nad, pred, za, među.

Route and time

The instrumental can mark the path or surface along which movement happens — the route — again with no preposition. This is sometimes called the "prosecutive" use: you move along or across the thing named.

The instrumental also expresses certain time relations — recurrence and parts of the day — once more without a preposition. Jutrom ("in the mornings"), večerom ("in the evenings"), danju (by day) — and the very useful subotom ("on Saturdays"), nedjeljom ("on Sundays"), expressing a habitual recurrence. The plural danima, godinama means "for days / for years (on end)."

The predicate instrumental: become, consider, engage in

A cluster of verbs treats the instrumental as a predicate — the role, profession, or category that someone becomes, is considered, or busies themselves with. This is where the case stops naming a tool and starts naming a state of being.

baviti se + instrumental — "to do / be engaged in"

This is the standard, idiomatic way to say what you do — your profession, sport, hobby, field. The reflexive baviti se literally means "occupy oneself with," and its complement is a bare instrumental.

postati + instrumental (or nominative) — "to become"

The verb postati ("become") classically takes the instrumental of the new state — postati liječnikom. But modern standard Croatian also widely allows the nominative here — postati liječnik — treating the complement like an ordinary subject-predicate noun. Both are correct; the instrumental is a touch more formal and traditional, the nominative more colloquial and increasingly common.

smatrati / držati + instrumental — "to consider (someone something)"

Verbs of judging — smatrati ("consider"), držati (in the sense "regard as") — put the thing judged in the accusative and the verdict in the instrumental: smatram ga prijateljem ("I consider him a friend").

Other verbs that govern the instrumental

A handful of verbs simply require an instrumental object, with no preposition — their lexical government, which you memorise:

These belong to the broader topic of verb government — there is no logical shortcut, only a list of verbs whose objects happen to land in the instrumental.

How this differs from English

English marks none of this with case. "Become a doctor," "consider him a friend," "do music," "walk along the shore," "on Saturdays" all use bare nouns plus a preposition or nothing — there is no ending change. Croatian instead recruits the instrumental for the predicate of becoming and judging (a use with no English parallel at all — English would never put "a doctor" in any special form after "become"), and uses the bare instrumental for the route and for habitual days, where English needs along, down, or on. The predicate instrumental especially surprises learners: there is simply no English construction that changes the noun's shape to mark "the thing one becomes."

Common Mistakes

Key Takeaways

• pod, nad, pred, za, među + instrumental = static position ("where is it?"); the same prepositions + accusative = motion toward.
• The bare instrumental marks the route travelled (šećem obalom) and habitual days / parts of day (subotom, jutrom, godinama).
• baviti se + instrumental is the idiomatic "to do / be engaged in" — the everyday way to name a job or hobby (bavim se sportom).
• postati allows both the instrumental (postati liječnikom, traditional) and the nominative (postati liječnik, colloquial) — a genuine, accepted doublet.
• smatrati / držati put the person in the accusative and the verdict in the instrumental (smatram ga prijateljem); verbs like vladati, upravljati, ponositi se, oženiti se govern a bare instrumental — a memorised list.