bojati se (to be afraid)

Bojati se ("to be afraid, to fear") is the anchor for a whole class of Croatian emotion verbs: it is inherently reflexive — there is no bojati without se — and it governs the genitive of whatever is feared. Bojim se psa ("I'm afraid of the dog") puts the dog in the genitive, not the accusative an English speaker expects. Once you internalise the pattern "fear/avoidance verb + genitive of the feared thing", you also unlock its cousins sjećati se ("remember"), stidjeti se ("be ashamed"), čuvati se ("beware of"), and plašiti se ("be scared"). This page gives you the full paradigm and the government rules that make those verbs feel natural.

Aspect

Bojati se is imperfective only in normal use — fear is a state, and states are imperfective. There is no everyday perfective partner for ongoing fear; for the onset of fear ("to get scared, take fright") Croatian switches to a different verb, uplašiti se / prestrašiti se (pf): Uplašio sam se ("I got scared"). So treat bojati se as the standing-state verb and reach for uplašiti se when you mean the sudden jolt. Why imperfectives describe states is explained at imperfective meaning.

Present tense

Here is the trap that makes bojati se worth its own page: although the infinitive bojati looks a-class (like spavati → spavam), the present is i-type: bojim se, bojiš se, boji se…. You cannot predict it from the infinitive; you have to learn it.

The l-participle

Built on the infinitive stem boja-: masculine bojao, feminine bojala, neuter bojalo.

Perfect tense (perfekt)

Clitic biti + l-participle, with se in the cluster. The third person normally drops je before se (bojao se, not bojao se je).

Future I (futur prvi)

The infinitive bojati drops its final -i before the clitic: bojat ću se.

Imperative

The high-frequency form, especially in the negative. The i-present yields boj se (note: boj, not boji), plus bojmo se, bojte se. By far the most common phrase is the reassuring ne boj se ("don't be afraid").

Because bojati se has no everyday perfective, both the affirmative and the negative imperative use the same imperfective stem — you don't get the perfective/imperfective imperative switch you see with verbs like javiti se.

Conditional I (kondicional prvi)

bih-clitics + l-participle, with se in the cluster.

Other forms

• Passive participle: none — bojati se is intrinsically reflexive and cannot be passivised.
• Present verbal adverb: bojeći se ("fearing, out of fear") exists and turns up in writing: Bojeći se kazne, šutio je ("Fearing punishment, he stayed silent").

Key uses and government

1. bojati se + genitive — "be afraid of [a thing/person]"

The feared thing goes in the genitive. This is the headline rule and the main error point for English speakers, who default to a direct object. The pattern belongs to a family of verbs whose object is genitive, surveyed at genitive with verbs.

2. bojati se + da-clause — "be afraid that…"

For a feared situation, use da + a clause. Croatian normally states the feared outcome positively even when English uses "afraid that … won't / will": Bojim se da neće doći ("I'm afraid he won't come"). A more literary alternative uses da ne with a subjunctive-flavoured present (Bojim se da ne zakasnim — "I'm afraid I might be late"), but the plain da + future/present is the everyday choice.

3. bojati se za + accusative — "fear for someone/something"

When you fear for someone's safety, switch to za + accusative. Here the genitive rule does not apply, because za governs the accusative.

Common Mistakes

Key Takeaways

• bojati se is inherently reflexive (no bojati) and imperfective; the onset of fear is uplašiti se (pf).
• The infinitive looks a-class but the present is i-type: bojim se, bojiš se, boji se, bojimo se, bojite se, boje se.
• Government: genitive of the feared thing — Bojim se psa / mraka / pasa.
• Use da
  • clause for a feared situation; za
    • accusative for "fear for someone".
• The imperative (ne) boj se is everyday; the verb has no perfective imperative switch.