Croatian news writing has a recognizable grammar, and once you learn to see it, every report reads the same way. It narrates events in the historic present to make them feel immediate, compresses the headline into a verbless noun phrase, hides the human actor behind the se-passive so the prose sounds objective, attributes every claim to a source with a small set of fixed phrases (prema riječima, kako navodi, izjavio je), and stitches the paragraphs together with formal connectives like međutim ("however") and naime ("namely, in fact"). This page reads a short, invented, deliberately mundane report — the opening of a new pedestrian bridge — sentence by sentence, then explains each journalistic feature. The content is fictional; the grammar is the real subject.
The text
Otvoren novi pješački most preko Save
New pedestrian bridge over the Sava opened
U subotu je u Zagrebu svečano otvoren novi pješački most preko Save, izgrađen na mjestu starog željeznog mosta.
On Saturday a new pedestrian bridge over the Sava, built on the site of the old iron bridge, was ceremonially opened in Zagreb.
Gradonačelnik presijeca vrpcu, a okupljeni građani pljeskom pozdravljaju dovršetak radova koji su trajali gotovo dvije godine.
The mayor cuts the ribbon, and the assembled citizens greet with applause the completion of works that lasted almost two years.
Prema riječima gradonačelnika, projekt je financiran iz gradskog proračuna i sredstava Europske unije.
According to the mayor, the project was financed from the city budget and European Union funds.
„Želimo da svaki kvart dobije sigurnu vezu s riječnom obalom”, izjavio je gradonačelnik na svečanosti.
„We want every neighbourhood to get a safe connection to the riverbank”, the mayor stated at the ceremony.
Procjenjuje se da će mostom dnevno prolaziti više od dvadeset tisuća pješaka i biciklista.
It is estimated that more than twenty thousand pedestrians and cyclists will cross the bridge daily.
Most je trebao biti otvoren još lani, no radovi su odgođeni zbog poskupljenja građevinskog materijala.
The bridge was supposed to be opened back last year, but the works were postponed because of the rise in price of building material.
Stanovnici okolnih zgrada uglavnom su zadovoljni; međutim, neki upozoravaju na buku tijekom noći.
Residents of the surrounding buildings are mostly satisfied; however, some warn about noise during the night.
Naime, most ostaje osvijetljen do ponoći, pa se kasni prolaznici ondje često zadržavaju.
Namely, the bridge stays lit until midnight, so late passers-by often linger there.
The historic present: narrating the past as if it were live
The headline of the second paragraph — Gradonačelnik *presijeca vrpcu ("The mayor *cuts the ribbon") — describes an event that has already happened, yet the verb is in the present tense, not the past. This is the historic present (historijski or pripovjedni prezent), and it is a hallmark of vivid journalism and storytelling. The reporter stands you at the scene and lets the action unfold in front of you, which is far livelier than the flat past Gradonačelnik je presjekao vrpcu ("The mayor cut the ribbon").
English does this too, in captions and sports commentary ("Messi passes, he shoots, he scores!"), but Croatian uses it much more freely in written reportage. Notice that the present presijeca sits right next to the past koji su trajali ("that lasted") in the same sentence — the report zooms in on the live moment of the ceremony while keeping the background facts in the past.
Predsjednik stiže u deset, pozdravlja okupljene i odmah ulazi u dvoranu.
The president arrives at ten, greets the assembled crowd, and immediately enters the hall. (historic present — the events are already over)
Vatrogasci gase požar dok stanari napuštaju zgradu.
Firefighters extinguish the fire while residents leave the building. (live, on-the-scene present)
The verbless headline
The headline — Otvoren novi pješački most preko Save ("New pedestrian bridge over the Sava opened") — has no finite verb at all. Croatian headlines routinely drop the auxiliary je and leave only the passive participle: otvoren ("opened") stands alone, agreeing with most (masculine singular). The full sentence would be Most *je otvoren, but the headline strips out the *je to save space, exactly as English drops articles and the copula ("Bridge opened, mayor cuts ribbon").
This participle-only style is itself a kind of se-passive cousin: it foregrounds the result (otvoren — "opened, in an opened state") and leaves out who did the opening. Recognizing it matters, because a headline like Uhićen osumnjičenik ("Suspect arrested") can look subjectless until you realize uhićen is a passive participle waiting for an invisible je.
Uhićen osumnjičenik za pljačku banke
Suspect in bank robbery arrested (headline: passive participle uhićen, je dropped)
Najavljene nove mjere protiv inflacije
New measures against inflation announced (najavljene agrees with the feminine plural mjere)
The se-passive: keeping the actor invisible
To sound objective, news prose systematically removes the human agent, and its favourite tool is the se-passive (also called the reflexive passive). In Procjenjuje *se da će… ("*It is estimated that…"), no one is named as doing the estimating — the analysts and journalists stay invisible, and the construction reads as neutral fact. The same in the final paragraph: kasni prolaznici se ondje često zadržavaju uses se on an intransitive verb of position.
The se-passive is built from a transitive verb plus the clitic se; the logical object becomes the grammatical subject (or is left implied), and the verb agrees with it. Procjenjuje se is third-person singular because the clause that follows (da će…) counts as a neuter singular subject. This is the default impersonal voice of Croatian officialdom — reports, forecasts, instructions.
Procjenjuje se da će gradnja biti gotova do proljeća.
It is estimated that construction will be finished by spring. (se-passive, no agent named)
O projektu se već dugo govori u medijima.
The project has long been talked about in the media. (govori se — impersonal, 'one talks about it')
Karte se mogu kupiti na blagajni.
Tickets can be bought at the box office. (karte = subject, se-passive)
Reported speech with da, and source attribution
Croatian journalism almost never states a claim bare; it ties each one to a source. Two patterns dominate this passage.
First, direct quotation with Croatian quotation marks „…” and a reporting verb: „Želimo da…”, *izjavio je gradonačelnik ("…the mayor stated"). The reporting verb *izjaviti ("to state, declare") is more formal than reći ("to say") and is the standard news verb. Notice that the quote itself contains Želimo *da svaki kvart dobije… — Croatian expresses "we want X to happen" with *da + present, not an infinitive, because the wanting and the getting have different subjects.
Second, indirect attribution with prema riječima + genitive: prema riječima gradonačelnika ("according to the mayor", literally "according to the words of the mayor"). The source goes in the genitive (gradonačelnika). This is the workhorse attribution phrase; its cousins are kako navodi + nominative ("as [X] states") and prema podacima + genitive ("according to the data of"). Crucially, Croatian reported speech does not backshift tenses the way English does: Rekao je da dolazi = "He said he was coming" — the present dolazi stays present under a past reporting verb.
Prema riječima ravnatelja, škola će dobiti novu sportsku dvoranu.
According to the principal, the school will get a new sports hall. (prema riječima + genitive ravnatelja)
Ministrica je izjavila da pregovori još traju.
The minister stated that the negotiations were still ongoing. (da + present traju — no backshift, where English shifts to 'were')
Kako navodi policija, nesreća se dogodila oko ponoći.
As the police state, the accident happened around midnight. (kako navodi + nominative source)
Formal connectives: međutim and naime
Two connectives in the closing paragraphs carry a distinctly written, formal flavour. Međutim ("however") signals a contrast or qualification, and — unlike English "however" — it usually sits at the start of its clause, set off by a comma: …uglavnom su zadovoljni; *međutim, neki upozoravaju…. It is the neutral-to-formal cousin of the everyday *ali ("but"), and you would not normally use it mid-chat with friends.
Naime ("namely, in fact, you see") introduces an explanation or elaboration of what was just said: …upozoravaju na buku. *Naime, most ostaje osvijetljen… — the *naime clause explains why there is noise. It tells the reader "here is the reason / the detail behind that statement." English has no single clean equivalent; "namely" is the closest, but naime often works like "the thing is" or "you see."
Cijene su porasle; međutim, potražnja se nije smanjila.
Prices have risen; however, demand has not fallen. (međutim — formal contrast, clause-initial)
Let je otkazan. Naime, zbog magle aerodrom je zatvoren.
The flight was cancelled. Namely, the airport was closed because of fog. (naime introduces the explanation)
Vocabulary gloss
| Word / phrase | Meaning |
|---|---|
| pješački most | pedestrian bridge |
| svečano otvoriti | to open ceremonially / inaugurate |
| presjeći vrpcu | to cut the ribbon |
| dovršetak radova | completion of the works |
| prema riječima | according to (someone), in (someone's) words |
| gradski proračun | the city budget |
| izjaviti | to state, to declare (formal reporting verb) |
| procjenjuje se | it is estimated (se-passive) |
| poskupljenje | price rise, becoming more expensive |
| međutim | however (formal) |
| naime | namely, in fact, you see |
| prolaznik | passer-by |
A register note: this passage is firmly (formal / journalistic). The historic present, the agentless se-passives (procjenjuje se, financiran je), the attribution phrase prema riječima, and the connectives međutim and naime would all be out of place in casual conversation, where you would say most koji su otvorili ("the bridge they opened") rather than the participle otvoren most, and ali rather than međutim. The reporting verb izjaviti is itself more formal than the neutral reći; in a chat you would simply say Rekao je da….
Common Mistakes
❌ prema riječima gradonačelnik
Case error — after prema riječima the source goes in the GENITIVE: prema riječima gradonačelnika, not the nominative gradonačelnik.
✅ Prema riječima gradonačelnika, projekt je gotov.
According to the mayor, the project is finished.
❌ Ministrica je rekla da su pregovori još trajali (meaning: she said they ARE still ongoing).
Backshift error — Croatian keeps the original tense under da; for an ongoing fact use the present: rekla da pregovori još traju. Don't shift to the past as English does.
✅ Ministrica je izjavila da pregovori još traju.
The minister stated that the negotiations are still ongoing.
❌ Karte prodaju se na blagajni.
Clitic-placement error — the clitic se must come in second position: Karte se prodaju na blagajni, not after the verb.
✅ Karte se prodaju na blagajni.
Tickets are sold at the box office.
❌ Cijene su porasle, however potražnja se nije smanjila.
Connective error — use međutim, set off by a comma at the start of the clause; English 'however' is not Croatian, and ali alone is the informal register.
✅ Cijene su porasle; međutim, potražnja se nije smanjila.
Prices have risen; however, demand has not fallen.
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Start learning Croatian→Related Topics
- The se-Passive and Impersonal ConstructionsB1 — Expressing 'one does / it is done' with se — the everyday Croatian passive.
- Reported (Indirect) SpeechB1 — Turning statements, questions and commands into indirect speech — with the crucial rule that Croatian does NOT backshift tenses.
- Connecting Ideas: Addition and ContrastB1 — Addition connectives (i, također, osim toga, štoviše) and contrast connectives (ali, međutim, ipak, naprotiv, s druge strane) — and the crucial split between sentence-internal conjunctions and sentence-initial discourse markers.
- Quoting and AttributionB2 — Attributing words to a source — reporting verbs kaže, tvrdi, smatra, dodaje; prema + dative 'according to'; the distancing navodno 'allegedly'; and Croatian's own quotation marks „…”.
- Using the Present TenseA2 — Habitual, ongoing, future, and historic present — and aspect's role.
- Annotated Opinion ColumnC1 — A sentence-by-sentence reading of an original Croatian newspaper opinion piece on public transport, showing the grammar of persuasion: the argumentative connectives međutim, ipak, naprotiv and s druge strane, the stance adverbs and hedges navodno, očito and nažalost, the rhetorical question with zar, the conditional za bilo gdje, and the fronting word order that columnists use to drive a point home.