Likes, Dislikes, and Preferences

Talking about what you like is one of the first real conversations you will have in Croatian — ordering food, choosing a film, explaining your tastes. The trap is that Croatian splits the English verb „like" into two different machines that don't work the same way grammatically. Voljeti makes you the subject (volim kavu — „I like coffee"), while sviđati se flips the sentence around and puts you in the dative (sviđa mi se — literally „it appeals to me"). On top of that, „I prefer" isn't a single verb at all but a phrase — više volim or radije — built on top of the like-verbs. This page sorts all of it out by function, so you can say exactly how much you like something and how it ranks against the alternatives.

Voli vs. sviđa se: the two faces of „like"

Start with the headline distinction, because everything else builds on it.

Voljeti = a settled, ongoing liking or love. You are the grammatical subject and the thing liked goes in the accusative. Use it for tastes, habits, and people you love.

Sviđati se = something appeals to you, often a fresh reaction or a judgement of quality. The thing that appeals is the subject; you sit in the dative (mi, ti, mu, joj…). Literally it is „X is pleasing to me."

A crucial agreement point with sviđati se: because the liked thing is the subject, the verb agrees with it, not with you. One thing → sviđa; more than one → sviđaju.

Saying it strongly: jako, baš, obožavam

To dial the liking up, the everyday intensifiers are jako („very, a lot"), baš („really"), and stvarno („really, truly"). For the top of the scale, obožavati („to adore") is the natural „I love / I'm obsessed with."

Note that najviše volim („I like _ most") is how you express a favourite. Croatian rarely uses an adjective like „favourite"; it leans on najviše („the most") plus the verb.

Disliking: ne volim and mrziti

For dislikes, the gentle option is simply the negated verb — ne volim („I don't like"). The strong option is mrziti („to hate"), which behaves like voljeti (you are the subject, the object is accusative). A softer middle ground is ne sviđa mi se („I don't like / it doesn't appeal to me").

The full conjugation and intensity range of mrziti are on the verb mrziti.

„I prefer": više volim and radije

Here is the feature that has no clean one-word match in English's prefer. Croatian builds preference in two ways, and both are everyday:

1. više volim („I like _ more") — literally „more I-like." Use it to prefer one noun over another, with od + genitive or nego for the comparison.

2. radije („more gladly / rather") — an adverb that sits in front of a verb: radije čitam („I'd rather read"). Use it to prefer one activity over another.

For comparisons you will need the word for „than." With a noun comparison after više volim, Croatian allows both od + genitive and nego + nominative; with a verb comparison after radije, only nego works (you cannot put a verb in the genitive).

Common Mistakes

Key Takeaways

• voljeti = settled liking/love, you are the subject, object in the accusative (volim kavu). sviđati se = something appeals to you, you go in the dative and the verb agrees with the thing (sviđa mi se / sviđaju mi se).
• Strengthen with jako / baš / stvarno, top it off with obožavam; express a favourite with najviše volim.
• Dislike: mild ne volim / ne sviđa mi se, strong mrzim / ne podnosim.
• „I prefer" is built, not single: više volim
  • a noun (compared with od
    • genitive or nego), radije
      • a verb/activity (compared with nego). Add bih (radije bih) for a polite „I'd rather."
• Avoid the foreign-sounding preferirati — više volim is what people actually say.