Dialogue: At the Pharmacy

Describing pain in Croatian flips the English logic on its head. You don't have a headache; rather, "the head pains me." The body part is the subject doing the hurting, and you — the sufferer — sit in the accusative. Add the modal trebati ("to need"), which also makes you the dative recipient of what you need, and a single pharmacy visit becomes a workout in experiencer constructions. This exchange between a customer and a pharmacist walks through all of them in the polite Vi-register you will always use at a counter.

The dialogue

— Ljekarnica: Dobar dan, izvolite, kako vam mogu pomoći? — Kupac: Dobar dan. Već tri dana me jako boli grlo, a od jučer me bole i uši. — Ljekarnica: Imate li temperaturu? — Kupac: Imam, sinoć je bila trideset osam. Treba mi nešto protiv bolova i upale. — Ljekarnica: Razumijem. Jeste li alergični na koji lijek? — Kupac: Koliko znam, nisam. — Ljekarnica: Dobro. Preporučujem ove tablete. Uzimajte jednu tabletu tri puta dnevno, poslije jela. — Kupac: A za grlo? Trebale bi mi i neke pastile. — Ljekarnica: Evo, ove su odlične. Sišite po jednu svaka dva sata, ali ne više od osam dnevno. — Kupac: Hvala. Trebam li recept za nešto od ovoga? — Ljekarnica: Ne, sve se izdaje bez recepta. Ako vam za tri dana ne bude bolje, javite se liječniku. — Kupac: Hoću, hvala vam puno. Doviđenja.

Grammar in action

Boli me — the pain construction. This is the heart of the page. To say what hurts, Croatian makes the body part the subject and puts you in the accusative. Boli me glava is literally "the head pains me" — glava is nominative (it does the hurting), me is the accusative ("me"). Match the verb to the body part: one part takes singular boli, two or more take plural bole. So boli me grlo but bole me uši ("my ears hurt," two ears → plural verb).

This is the same experiencer logic as Drago mi je but with the accusative instead of the dative. The full conjugation and the dative variant boli me / smeta mi contrast are on boljeti; the body-part vocabulary is on health and the body.

The Vi-register — vam, vam mogu, javite se. Everything at a pharmacy counter runs on formal Vi. The pharmacist opens with kako vam mogu pomoći ("how can I help you," vam = dative Vi) and closes with javite se liječniku (Vi-imperative). The customer answers in kind — hvala vam — and never drops to ti. This is non-negotiable in any health, official, or service setting with a stranger.

The full social map of when Vi is obligatory is on ti vs Vi.

Trebati — Treba mi / trebale bi mi. The verb trebati ("to need") has two faces. In its everyday impersonal use, the thing needed is the subject and you are the dative: treba mi nešto ("I need something," literally "something is-needed to-me"). The verb agrees with the thing needed, so a plural need takes a plural verb: trebale bi mi pastile ("I'd need some lozenges," feminine plural pastile → feminine plural trebale). But trebati also has a personal use meaning "to need to / should" where you are the subject: trebam li recept? ("do I need a prescription?").

The two patterns — impersonal treba mi vs personal trebam — and how to choose are detailed on trebati.

Dosage imperatives — Uzimajte, sišite. Instructions for taking medicine use the Vi-imperative, and they deliberately use the imperfective aspect, because the action is repeated, not a single event. Uzimajte ("take," habitually, imperfective) is right for a recurring dose; the perfective uzmite would mean "take it once, now." Same with sišite ("suck," ongoing) for lozenges.

The partitive — nešto protiv bolova, ne više od osam. When you ask for some of something unspecified, the substance falls into the genitive. Nešto protiv bolova ("something for [the] pains") puts bolovi into the genitive plural bolova; ne više od osam ("no more than eight") and bez recepta ("without a prescription") likewise take the genitive after the prepositions od and bez. The little distributive po jednu ("one apiece") works alongside this.

Vocabulary

Culture & register note

Key Takeaways

• Pain makes the body part the subject and you the accusative: boli me grlo, bole me uši — match the verb (singular/plural) to the body part.
• A pharmacy runs entirely in the Vi-register: vam, hvala vam, javite se.
• Trebati is impersonal with a dative experiencer (treba mi nešto, trebale bi mi pastile) but personal for "need to" (trebam li recept?).
• Dosage instructions use the imperfective Vi-imperative (uzimajte, sišite) because the action repeats.
• "Some of" something, and prepositions like bez and od, pull the genitive: nešto protiv bolova, bez recepta.