događati se / dogoditi se (to happen)

Dogoditi se ("to happen, to occur") is the verb behind the single most useful question for managing the unexpected: Što se dogodilo? ("What happened?"). It is reflexive and almost always third person, because its subject is not a person but the event itself — the thing that happens. When the event happens to someone, that person goes in the dative: Dogodilo mi se nešto čudno ("Something strange happened to me"). This page lays out the small, focused paradigm you actually need and the dative pattern that trips up English speakers.

Aspect

This is a clean aspectual pair:

• dogoditi se (pf) — a single, completed happening: Dogodila se nesreća ("An accident happened").
• događati se (impf) — something happening repeatedly or in progress: Takve se stvari događaju ("Such things happen").

Use the perfective for one bounded event and the imperfective for a habit or an ongoing process. The choice is the standard perfective-vs-imperfective decision laid out at choosing aspect. A common colloquial synonym, desiti se / dešavati se, behaves identically — same reflexive se, same third-person event-as-subject, same dative for the affected person.

Present tense

Because the subject is an event, only the third-person forms are used in practice. Dogoditi se is perfective, so its present has future/general reference (in subordinate clauses) rather than describing a happening "right now"; for the live, ongoing sense you use the imperfective događa se.

The l-participle

Built on the infinitive stem dogodi-: the form must agree with the event-subject's gender and number.

The neuter dogodilo se is the default when there is no specific noun subject, as in Što se dogodilo? — the question word što is treated as neuter.

Perfect tense (perfekt)

By far the most common tense for this verb. Clitic biti + l-participle, with se in the cluster. In the third person — which is all you normally use — je deletes before se: dogodilo se, not dogodilo se je. This je-deletion is obligatory and is covered at perfect word order.

Future I (futur prvi)

The infinitive dogoditi drops its final -i before the clitic: dogodit će se. Used only in the third person.

Imperative

Dogoditi se has no imperative in normal use — you cannot command an event to occur. The closest thing is the idiomatic, almost ironic neka se dogodi ("let it happen"), built with the particle neka rather than a true imperative form; see negative and let.

Conditional I (kondicional prvi)

bih-clitics + l-participle, third person only.

Other forms

• Passive participle: none — dogoditi se is reflexive and intransitive.
• Present verbal adverb: događajući se exists but is vanishingly rare in practice; the noun događaj ("event") is what you reach for instead.

Key uses and government

1. The event as subject — agreement

The thing that happens is the grammatical subject and controls agreement on the l-participle. With no named subject, default to neuter (dogodilo se). This impersonal-leaning use is part of the broader se system at se passive and impersonal.

2. dogoditi se + dative — "happen to someone"

The affected person goes in the dative: Dogodilo mi se nešto ("Something happened to me"). English uses "to me", but Croatian needs no preposition — just the dative. These are the verbs surveyed at dative with verbs.

3. događati se — habitual / ongoing

The imperfective expresses things that happen regularly or are unfolding.

Common Mistakes

Key Takeaways

• dogoditi se (pf, single event) / događati se (impf, habitual or ongoing); colloquial twin desiti se / dešavati se.
• The subject is the event, so the l-participle agrees with it: dogodila se nesreća, dogodili su se neredi, default neuter dogodilo se.
• Used in the third person only; no real imperative (use neka se dogodi).
• The person it happens to is in the dative: Dogodilo mi se nešto.
• In the perfect, the 3sg je drops before se: dogodilo se, not dogodilo se je.