Dialogue: At the Bakery

The neighbourhood pekarnica is where most Croatians buy bread daily, and it's a perfect first place to practise two grammar points that hit you the moment you open your mouth: the partitive genitive (you don't ask for „bread", you ask for „some of the bread" — kruha) and the way numerals govern the noun that follows them (one ending after dva, another after pet). Add the polite Molim and the price question Koliko košta?, and this short exchange covers everything you need to walk out with a warm bag of pastries.

The dialogue

— Pekarica: Dobar dan, izvolite? — Kupac: Dobar dan. Molim vas, jedan kruh i dva peciva. — Pekarica: Bijeli ili crni kruh? — Kupac: Crni, molim. I dajte mi još malo kruha za danas, narezano. — Pekarica: Može. Želite li još nešto? — Kupac: Da, pet kifli i jedan burek sa sirom. — Pekarica: Imamo i svježe krafne, baš su izašle iz pećnice. — Kupac: Onda i dvije krafne. To je sve, hvala. — Pekarica: Koliko vam narežem kruha? — Kupac: Cijeli, molim. Koliko košta sve skupa? — Pekarica: Šest eura i četrdeset centi. — Kupac: Izvolite. Hvala lijepa, doviđenja!

Grammar in action

The partitive genitive — some bread, not the bread. This is the bakery's signature lesson. When you want some of something uncountable — bread, milk, water — Croatian doesn't use the plain accusative; it uses the genitive to mean „some / a portion of". So dajte mi kruha means „give me some bread" (an unspecified amount), where kruha is the genitive of kruh. Contrast it sharply with dajte mi kruh (accusative), which means „give me the loaf" — the whole, specific thing. The case ending alone carries the difference between „some bread" and „the bread".

So the same shopper says jedan kruh (a whole loaf, accusative) but malo kruha (some bread, partitive genitive) in the same breath. The full logic of the partitive and quantity genitive is on the partitive and quantity genitive.

Numerals 2–4 — the paucal. When you count two, three, or four of something, the noun does not go into the ordinary plural — it takes a special paucal form, a relic of the old dual. After dva/dvije, tri, četiri, masculine and neuter nouns take what looks like the genitive singular (dva peciva = „two rolls"), while feminine nouns take -e (dvije krafne = „two doughnuts"). The number dva even changes for gender: dva with masculine/neuter, dvije with feminine.

The complete behaviour of dva, tri, četiri and how the noun bends after them is on the paucal (two to four).

Numerals 5 and up — the genitive plural. From pet („five") onward, the noun jumps to the genitive plural: pet kifli („five crescent rolls", genitive plural of kifla). This is the most consistent counting rule in Croatian — five and every higher number demand the genitive plural, right up until a number ending in 2, 3, or 4 sends you back to the paucal. The same rule shapes the price: šest eura and četrdeset centi are both genitive plurals after 6 and 40.

Polite Molim and asking the price. Molim („please" / „I beg") is the workhorse of bakery politeness — tagged onto requests (crni, molim) and expanded to molim vas („please", with the Vi-form) for extra courtesy. To ask the price you use Koliko košta…? („How much does it cost?"), with koliko („how much") plus the verb koštati.

Asking prices and counting out money is covered on numbers, prices and haggling, and the wider shopping toolkit on shopping and money.

Vocabulary

Culture & register note

Key Takeaways

• The partitive genitive means „some of": malo kruha („some bread") vs jedan kruh („one whole loaf") — the case alone marks the difference.
• After 2, 3, 4 the noun takes the paucal: dva peciva, dvije krafne — and dva (m./n.) vs dvije (f.) agrees in gender.
• From 5 up the noun takes the genitive plural: pet kifli, šest eura, četrdeset centi.
• Molim (vas) is the all-purpose politeness word; tag it onto any request.
• Ask the price with Koliko košta…? and the total with sve skupa.