Dialogue: Chatting About the Weather

The weather is the universal opening move of small talk, and Croatian handles it with a cluster of structures English never uses. Where English says „it is raining" with a dummy „it", Croatian simply says pada kiša — „the rain falls", with no dummy subject at all. Where English says „I'm cold", Croatian puts you in the dative and says hladno mi je — „it is cold to me". This short exchange between two neighbours waiting for a bus runs the whole weather toolkit past you at once: the subjectless weather verbs, the dative-experiencer state phrases, the fixed question Kakvo je vrijeme?, and the comparatives you reach for the moment the weather changes.

The dialogue

— Petra: Joj, kakvo je danas vrijeme! Pada kiša cijeli dan. — Boris: Da, grozno. A jučer je sunce sjalo cijelo poslijepodne. — Petra: Znam. Hladno mi je, nisam ponijela jaknu. — Boris: I meni je hladno. Kažu da će sutra biti toplije. — Petra: Stvarno? Bilo bi lijepo. Ovaj tjedan je bilo prehladno za lipanj. — Boris: Čuo sam da će vikend biti sunčan. Možda i previše vruće. — Petra: Samo neka ne grmi. Bojim se grmljavine. — Boris: Ma neće. Vidiš, već se razvedrava prema zapadu. — Petra: Aha, stvarno. Nebo je svjetlije nego maloprije. — Boris: Eto, evo i autobusa. Bar nećemo mokri čekati. — Petra: Hvala Bogu. Ugodan ti dan, Borise! — Boris: Također, čuvaj se!

Grammar in action

Impersonal weather verbs — no „it". English weather sentences need a placeholder subject: it is raining, it is thundering. Croatian has no such dummy pronoun. Some weather verbs simply stand alone in the third person — grmi („it thunders"), sijeva („it lightnings"), sniježi („it snows") — while others pair a verb with its natural subject noun: pada kiša literally means „rain falls", with kiša („rain") as the real grammatical subject. There is nothing for it to stand in for, because the rain itself is doing the falling.

So grmi is a true impersonal verb with no subject, while pada kiša is a personal sentence whose subject happens to be the weather. Both are explained on impersonal sentences.

Sunce sja / sunce je sjalo — the sun as subject. The same logic extends to bright weather: sunce sja („the sun shines"), where sunce is the neuter subject and sja its verb. In the past it becomes sunce je sjalo, with the neuter -lo ending on the participle agreeing with sunce. This is genuinely a full subject-verb sentence — quite unlike grmi — and it is why you can ask gdje je sunce? but never gdje je ono? about the rain.

Kakvo je vrijeme? — asking about the weather. The set question is Kakvo je vrijeme? („What's the weather like?"), using the interrogative adjective kakav/kakva/kakvo („what kind of"). Because vrijeme („weather/time") is neuter, the question takes the neuter form kakvo. Petra's exclamation Kakvo je danas vrijeme! uses the very same words as an exclamation rather than a question — context and intonation carry the difference.

Hladno mi je — the dative of state. This is the single most important weather structure, and it baffles English speakers. To say you are cold, hot, sick, or bored, Croatian does not make you the subject. Instead it builds a subjectless sentence with a neuter adjective (hladno, toplo, vruće) plus the verb je, and puts you in the dative: hladno mi je = „it is cold to me". You are the experiencer, not the agent — the cold is happening to you. Swap the dative pronoun and the person changes: hladno mi je / hladno ti je / hladno mu je.

Beware the trap: ja sam hladan means „I am a cold person" (emotionally distant), not „I feel cold". The dative-of-state pattern, and the verbs and adjectives that demand it, are covered on the dative with verbs and adjectives.

Comparatives — toplije, hladnije, svjetlije. Weather talk is comparison: it's getting warmer, colder, brighter. Croatian forms the comparative with the suffix -iji/-ija/-ije (or just -ji), so topao („warm") → topliji, and the neuter adverb form is toplije („warmer"). After a comparative, „than" is nego or od + genitive. Notice the comparatives here are neuter (toplije, svjetlije) because they describe the impersonal weather, not a masculine or feminine noun.

The full comparative system — regular suffixes, the irregulars, and the nego vs od choice — is on the comparative.

Vocabulary

Culture & register note

Key Takeaways

• Croatian has no dummy „it" for weather: grmi stands utterly alone, while pada kiša and sunce sja are real sentences whose subject is the weather noun itself.
• To feel cold, hot, or unwell, use the dative of state: hladno mi je („it is cold to me"), never ja sam hladan (= emotionally cold).
• Ask about the weather with Kakvo je vrijeme? — kakvo is neuter to match vrijeme; the same words exclaim as well as question.
• Comparatives take -iji/-ije (topliji, toplije); after them „than" is nego or od
  • genitive.
• Weather comparatives describing the day are neuter (toplije, svjetlije), because there is no masculine or feminine noun for them to agree with.