Dialogue: At the Market

The tržnica — the open-air green market — is where Croatians buy their fruit, vegetables, and eggs, and where the language's most notorious feature lives in plain sight: numerals govern the case of the noun they count. Buy two apples and you get one ending; buy five and you get another. This dialogue between a shopper and a vendor (piljarica) walks straight through the numeral system: the paucal after dva, tri, četiri, the genitive plural after pet and up, the partitive genitive for uncounted amounts (daj mi kruha), and prices in eura.

The dialogue

— Kupac: Dobar dan! Pošto su jabuke? — Piljarica: Dva eura kilogram, domaće su, slatke. — Kupac: Onda jedan kilogram jabuka, molim. I dvije kruške. — Piljarica: Izvolite. Još nešto? — Kupac: Da, tri rajčice i pet krumpira. — Piljarica: Evo. Imamo i svježi špinat, baš lijep. — Kupac: Može jedna veza špinata. I dajte mi malo peršina, ako imate. — Piljarica: Naravno, peršin je gratis. Treba li još što? — Kupac: Ne, to je sve. Koliko sam dužan? — Piljarica: Sve skupa pet eura i dvadeset centi. — Kupac: Evo deset. Zadržite trideset centi. — Piljarica: Hvala, lijep pozdrav!

Grammar in action

Pošto / koliko košta — asking the price. Markets run on Pošto…? ("How much is/are…?"), the colloquial price question, interchangeable with Koliko košta…?. The vendor's answer dva eura kilogram gives the unit price — and already shows the paucal at work on euro.

The whole money-and-haggling phrasebook is on shopping and money.

The paucal — dva, tri, četiri. This is the feature with no English parallel. After dva/dvije, tri, četiri (and any number ending in them, like 22, 33), Croatian uses a special paucal form — historically a dual — not the plural. For most masculine and neuter nouns it looks like the genitive singular (dva eura); feminine nouns take -e (dvije kruške, tri rajčice). The number also agrees in gender: dva (masc.) vs dvije (fem.).

Notice dvije (feminine, for kruška) versus dva (masculine, for euro) — the numeral itself bends to the noun's gender.

Genitive plural — pet and up. From five onward, the noun jumps to the genitive plural: pet krumpira ("five potatoes"), pet eura, deset jaja. This is the single most reliable rule in the system — pet and every higher number (until you loop back to a 2/3/4 ending) demand the genitive plural, which is exactly why prices in eura always look that way once you cross five.

The whole counting machine — paucal after 2–4, genitive plural after 5+, and how compound numbers reset — is laid out on numeral government.

The partitive genitive — uncounted amounts. When you ask for some of something without counting it, the noun goes into the genitive with no number at all: malo peršina ("a little parsley"), veza špinata ("a bunch of spinach"). The classic market formula Daj mi kruha ("give me [some] bread") uses the partitive genitive kruha — "give me of-the-bread", i.e. an unspecified portion. Contrast daj mi kruh (the whole loaf) with daj mi kruha (some bread): the case alone carries the difference.

Why malo, puno, container words, and bare partitives all pull the genitive is the subject of the partitive and quantity genitive.

Polite imperatives — dajte, zadržite. The shopper softens requests with the Vi-imperative: dajte mi… ("give me…", polite), not the curt daj. At the end, zadržite trideset centi ("keep thirty cents") rounds the bill up — a normal, friendly gesture rather than a calculated tip.

The choice between the brisk daj and the courteous dajte is on imperative usage and politeness.

Vocabulary

Culture & register note

Key Takeaways

• 2, 3, 4 (and numbers ending in them) take the paucal: dva eura, dvije kruške, tri rajčice — and the numeral agrees in gender (dva vs dvije).
• 5 and up take the genitive plural: pet krumpira, deset jaja, pet eura.
• Uncounted amounts take the partitive genitive with no number: malo peršina, veza špinata, daj mi kruha (= some bread, vs daj mi kruh = the whole loaf).
• Prices are in eura / centi, both genitive plural after 5+.
• Use the polite Vi-imperative dajte mi… with a vendor; round up the bill with zadržite…