Annotated Public Signs and Notices

The first "real" Croatian a visitor has to read is not a textbook — it is the signs: on doors, in shops, in stairwells, on the tram. This register is tiny, repetitive, and everywhere, and it is grammatically special. Public prohibitions and offers use the se-passive (Prodaje se "for sale", Zabranjeno pušenje "smoking forbidden"), commands on doors use the bare infinitive (Gurati "push", Vući "pull"), warnings use one-word adjectives or imperatives (Oprez! "caution"), and official notices lean on the genitive and dative. Learn to decode these and you can navigate any Croatian building. Here are the most common signs, each with its grammar.

The text

Sign by sign

Gurati / Vući — push and pull

These two are on every glass door in Croatia, and grammatically they are the bare infinitive used as an impersonal instruction. Gurati = "to push", Vući = "to pull". Croatian, like Russian or German, can use the infinitive on a sign as a standing, person-free command — it tells everyone what to do, with no "you" anywhere in it. Where English uses the bare verb stem "Push / Pull", Croatian uses the full infinitive Gurati / Vući.

A finer point: these are imperfective infinitives, naming the activity itself, which is exactly what a permanent sign wants. You will also occasionally see the imperative forms Gurnite / Povucite ("push / pull", addressed to "you"), but the infinitive is the standard sign form. The infinitive-as-instruction pattern is the same one you meet in recipes (Dodati sol "add salt") and manuals.

Prodaje se / Iznajmljuje se — the se-passive

On shop windows and property ads you constantly meet the se-passive: Prodaje se ("is being sold" = "for sale"), Iznajmljuje se ("is for rent"), Daje se u najam ("available to let"). The little word se turns an active verb into a passive/impersonal one: prodavati ("to sell") → prodaje se ("is sold / for sale"). There is no stated agent — nobody is named as the seller — which is exactly what an advert wants.

The verb agrees with the thing being sold: Prodaje se stan ("an apartment is for sale", singular) but Prodaju se stanovi ("apartments are for sale", plural). This se-passive is one of the most useful constructions in the whole language; it is laid out in full on the se-passive and impersonal.

Zabranjeno pušenje / Ulaz zabranjen — the participle as prohibition

The most common prohibition format is zabranjen(o) ("forbidden"), a passive participle of zabraniti ("to forbid"), agreeing with what it bans. Zabranjeno pušenje = "smoking forbidden": here pušenje ("smoking") is a neuter verbal noun, so the participle is neuter zabranjeno. When the banned thing is masculine, the participle is masculine: Ulaz zabranjen ("entry forbidden", ulaz masc.), Pristup zabranjen ("access forbidden").

This is the official, bureaucratic counterpart to the bare-infinitive prohibition Ne pušiti ("no smoking"). Both are correct; Zabranjeno pušenje is the standard printed-sign version. Notice the agreement: it is the surest place to slip, because the participle must match the gender of the noun it forbids.

Zatvoreno / Otvoreno / Ne radi — states of a place

On a shop, Zatvoreno = "Closed" and Otvoreno = "Open". These are neuter short participles used impersonally — there is no stated subject (the shop, the place), so the neuter -o form does the work, like the impersonal hladno je ("it's cold"). They describe a state. When you attach them to a specific noun they agree in gender: Dućan je zatvoren ("the shop is closed", masc.), Trgovina je otvorena ("the store is open", fem.).

A close cousin is Ne radi ("out of order", literally "it does not work") — a plain impersonal present-tense verb, seen on broken lifts, ATMs, and vending machines. Its opposite, Radi ("working / open for business"), or Radno vrijeme ("opening hours"), tells you the place is operating.

Oprez! — caution

Oprez! = "Caution! / Watch out!" — a one-word noun warning ("carefulness"), the standard alert before a hazard. You also see the nouns Pozor! ("Attention! / Look out!") and Pažnja! ("Attention!"), both used the same way — a single noun shouted as a warning. The warning is usually completed by the hazard: Oprez! Mokar pod ("Caution! Wet floor"), Pozor! Pas ("Beware of the dog", lit. "Attention! Dog"). These warnings are impersonal and universal — aimed at anyone within sight.

Zabranjen pristup neovlaštenim osobama — the dative on official notices

Official notices use the dative to mark who a rule applies to or is addressed to. Zabranjen pristup neovlaštenim osobama = "access forbidden to unauthorised persons": neovlaštenim osobama ("to unauthorised persons") is dative plural, naming the people the prohibition targets. The dative is the case of the indirect object — the recipient or person concerned — and it shows up wherever a notice says a rule is for or to someone. See the dative as indirect object.

Equally common is the genitive after prepositions on signs: Čuvati od vlage ("keep away from moisture", od + genitive), Zona bez naplate ("zone without charge", bez + genitive), Ulaz samo za goste hotela ("entry only for hotel guests", za + accusative but goste hotela with a possessive genitive hotela). The behaviour of prepositions with the genitive is on the genitive after prepositions.

The sign register

What ties these together is economy and impersonality. Signs address no one and everyone, so they reach for the most agentless grammar Croatian has: the se-passive (Prodaje se, Ne puši se), the bare infinitive for commands (Gurati, Vući, Ne dirati), neuter short participles for states (Zatvoreno, Otvoreno), one-word nouns/adverbs for warnings (Oprez, Pozor), and the dative/genitive to specify who and what a rule covers. Nothing is conjugated for a specific person, because the message applies to everybody. Once you see the pattern, the whole built environment becomes readable.

Vocabulary gloss

The whole register is (formal) / official-public, but stripped to the bone — it is the cleanest place to see the se-passive, the sign-infinitive, and the zero copula at work. In speech you would never bark Gurati! at a person; you would say Gurni! or Gurnite! — the imperative, covered on imperative forms.

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