Prepositions and Their Cases

There is one fact about Croatian prepositions that you should internalise before learning a single preposition: every preposition governs a case. A preposition is never learned alone — it is learned together with the case it forces onto the following noun. od always pulls the genitive, prema always pulls the dative, kroz always pulls the accusative. The preposition and its case are welded together, and the only way to use the noun correctly is to know which case its preposition demands. This page lays out the whole system grouped by governed case, then isolates the small set of prepositions that are tricky precisely because they govern two cases.

Learn the preposition and the case as one unit

In English, a preposition leaves the noun untouched: to the house, from the house, under the house — the word house never changes. Croatian works differently. The preposition demands a case, and the noun ending changes to match. So you should store od in memory not as „from" but as „from + genitive," and prema not as „toward" but as „toward + dative." Treat the case as part of the preposition's dictionary entry.

Prepositions that take the GENITIVE

This is by far the largest group. The genitive prepositions cluster around origin, distance, absence, time, and cause — they describe where something comes from, what it lacks, or why it happens.

The detailed treatment of this group is on the genitive after prepositions.

Prepositions that take the DATIVE

A very small group — and this is worth noticing, because the dative governs almost no prepositions. The handful it does govern centre on direction toward (without entering) and proximity/facing.

Prepositions that take only the ACCUSATIVE

These describe movement through, down, or along something — pure path prepositions, with no rest counterpart.

These path prepositions get their own treatment on the motion prepositions page.

Prepositions that take only the LOCATIVE

The locative is the most parasitic case in Croatian: it occurs only after a preposition, never on its own. Three prepositions are locative-only, all of them about static surroundings or topic.

Prepositions that take the INSTRUMENTAL

A small group built around the „with" preposition and a few spatial relations. Only s/sa (in its „with" sense) is purely instrumental here; the five spatial words među, nad, pod, pred, za govern the instrumental only at rest — in motion they switch to the accusative, which is why they reappear among the seven two-case prepositions below. Note too that s/sa meaning „with" sits here, while s/sa meaning „off/from" sits up in the genitive group — same little word, two cases, treated in full on the s/sa page.

The seven two-case prepositions

Here is the part that earns its own page. A small set of high-frequency prepositions governs two cases, and the choice between them encodes a real difference in meaning — usually motion toward versus rest at a place. These seven are: u, na, pod, nad, pred, za, među.

The logic is clean once you see it. The motion case is always the accusative — for all seven, no exceptions. For the rest reading, u and na take the locative, while the other five take the instrumental. So the only split to memorise is „u and na go locative; pod, nad, pred, za, među go instrumental."

The whole mechanism is treated in depth on the two-case prepositions page, and u and na specifically — the two you will use a hundred times a day — get their own page at u and na.

Phonological variants: s/sa and k/ka

Two prepositions have a longer „support-vowel" form used purely for ease of pronunciation, with no change in meaning:

• s → sa before words beginning with s, z, š, ž (and before some other awkward clusters and before the pronoun mnom). You say sa mnom („with me"), sa sestrom („with my sister"), sa pšenicom („with wheat") — never the tongue-twisting s mnom or s sestrom.
• k → ka before words beginning with k or g. You say ka kući („toward home"), ka gradu („toward the city").

Common Mistakes

Key Takeaways

• Every preposition governs a case. Store the case as part of the preposition: od + genitive, prema + dative, kroz + accusative, o + locative, s (with) + instrumental.
• The genitive governs the most prepositions (od, do, iz, kod, bez, zbog, radi, prije, poslije, oko, protiv, umjesto…); the dative governs the fewest (k/ka, prema, nasuprot).
• Accusative-only path prepositions: kroz, niz, uz. Locative-only: o, po, pri.
• Seven two-case prepositions (u, na, pod, nad, pred, za, među) choose by meaning: accusative = motion toward, locative/instrumental = rest. Only u and na use the locative; the rest use the instrumental.
• s/sa and k/ka are phonological variants only — the longer form (sa, ka) appears before awkward consonant clusters and never changes meaning.