imati (to have) | Croatian Grammar

Imati ("to have") is the verb you reach for dozens of times a day — for possession, for age, for stating that something exists at all. Its conjugation is, reassuringly, completely regular a-class (so the only thing to memorise is the spelling of one paradigm), but two things make it a special case worth its own page: it has a fused negative nemam (you never say ne imam), and its frozen 3rd-person ima / nema is the everyday Croatian way to say "there is / there isn't". Master those two points and you have unlocked possession, existence, and a fistful of the most common idioms in the language.

Aspect

Imati is imperfective — it describes a state (having something), and states do not "complete". For that reason it has no everyday perfective partner. The prefixed zaimati / poimati are marginal and not what you want. To express getting something (the result of coming to have it), Croatian switches to a different verb: dobiti ("to get, receive"). So imati covers the lasting having; dobiti covers the moment of acquiring.

Present tense

The present is plain a-class: take the stem ima- and add -m, -š, ∅, -mo, -te, -ju. But the negative is its own paradigm built on the contracted stem nema- — this is the one piece you must learn cold.

Person	Affirmative	Negative	Meaning
ja	imam	nemam	I have / I don't have
ti	imaš	nemaš	you have
on/ona/ono	ima	nema	he/she/it has
mi	imamo	nemamo	we have
vi	imate	nemate	you have
oni/one/ona	imaju	nemaju	they have

Imam dvije sestre i jednog brata.

I have two sisters and one brother.

Nemaš pojma o čemu pričam, zar ne?

You have no idea what I'm talking about, do you?

Koliko godina ima tvoja kći?

How old is your daughter? — literally 'how many years does she have'.

💡

The negative of imati is the single word nemam, built like its own a-class verb (nemam, nemaš, nema…). Saying ne imam is one of the most recognisable beginner mistakes — Croatian fused the negation into the verb centuries ago, exactly as it did with nemam → nemoj and neću.

The l-participle

The l-participle agrees with the subject in gender and number; the perfect and the conditional are built from it.

Gender / number	Form
masculine singular	imao
feminine singular	imala
neuter singular	imalo
masculine plural	imali
feminine plural	imale
neuter plural	imala

Note the masculine singular imao: the historical -l has vocalised to -o (older imal → imao), which is why a feminine imala keeps the l but the masculine drops it.

Perfect tense (perfekt)

The everyday past: clitic biti (sam, si, je, smo, ste, su) + the l-participle. The auxiliary is a second-position clitic, so word order matters more than the verb itself.

Person	Masculine subject	Feminine subject
ja	imao sam	imala sam
ti	imao si	imala si
on / ona	imao je	imala je
mi	imali smo	imale smo
vi	imali ste	imale ste
oni / one	imali su	imale su

Imali smo super vikend, šteta što te nije bilo.

We had a great weekend, shame you weren't there.

Kao dijete nisam imala puno igračaka.

As a child I didn't have a lot of toys. — negative perfect, feminine speaker.

Future I (futur prvi)

Future I uses the htjeti clitic (ću, ćeš, će…) with the infinitive. When the infinitive comes first, imati loses its final -i and fuses with the clitic in writing: imat ću (not imati ću).

Person	Infinitive first	Clitic first (after another word)
ja	imat ću	… ću imati
ti	imat ćeš	… ćeš imati
on/ona/ono	imat će	… će imati
mi	imat ćemo	… ćemo imati
vi	imat ćete	… ćete imati
oni/one/ona	imat će	… će imati

Sutra ćemo imati više vremena za to.

Tomorrow we'll have more time for that.

Imat ćeš problema ako to ne riješiš odmah.

You'll have trouble if you don't sort it out right away.

Imperative

The imperative is built on the present stem; for a-class verbs that means -j. It is mostly used in the encouraging sense "have it / take it / let yourself have".

Person	Form	Meaning
ti	imaj	have!
mi	imajmo	let's have
vi	imajte	have! (pl./formal)

Imaj strpljenja, sve će se srediti.

Have patience, everything will work out.

Conditional I (kondicional prvi)

Conditional = the bih-clitics (bih, bi, bi, bismo, biste, bi) + l-participle. Use it for politeness and hypotheticals.

Person	Form (masc.)
ja	imao bih
ti	imao bi
on/ona/ono	imao/imala/imalo bi
mi	imali bismo
vi	imali biste
oni/one/ona	imali bi

Imao bih jedno pitanje, ako smijem.

I'd have a question, if I may. — polite conditional.

Other forms

Passive participle: imati takes a direct object but resists a natural passive; iman/imana is rare and best avoided. There is no everyday passive of "have" — Croatian, like English, simply does not say "X is had".
Present verbal adverb: imajući ("having"), genuinely used in writing: Imajući to na umu… ("Bearing that in mind…").

Imajući na umu sve troškove, odlučili smo pričekati.

Bearing all the costs in mind, we decided to wait. — verbal adverb in formal register.

Key uses and government

1. Possession: imati + accusative

The thing possessed goes in the accusative, the direct-object case. For inanimate masculine and all neuter/feminine nouns the accusative looks like the nominative, so the case is invisible until you have a masculine animate object (imam psa, "I have a dog", where pas → psa).

Imam novi auto, ali još nemam garažu.

I have a new car, but I don't have a garage yet.

Imaš li sitno? Trebam za parking.

Do you have small change? I need it for parking.

2. Existence: ima / nema + genitive

This is the construction English speakers most often get wrong. To say "there is" / "there are", Croatian uses frozen 3rd-singular ima — it does not agree with the noun. To say "there isn't / there aren't", it uses frozen nema, and crucially the noun goes into the genitive, because nema is a negated existential and Croatian puts the thing-that-doesn't-exist in the genitive (the genitive of negation).

Ima li ovdje wc?

Is there a toilet here? — existential 'ima', no agreement.

Nema mlijeka u frižideru.

There's no milk in the fridge. — 'nema' + genitive 'mlijeka'.

U gradu ima dobrih restorana, ali nema parkinga.

There are good restaurants in town, but there's no parking. — 'ima' + genitive plural, 'nema' + genitive singular.

The affirmative ima can take the genitive too in a partitive/quantity sense (ima kruha — "there's [some] bread"), but with a count noun the accusative is also heard (ima jedan problem). The negative nema is strict: always genitive. There is a fuller treatment on imati and existence and on existential sentences.

3. Idioms with ima / nema

A handful of fixed phrases are everywhere in spoken Croatian:

Nema problema, javi se kad stigneš.

No problem, let me know when you arrive.

Hvala ti puno! — Nema na čemu.

Thanks a lot! — You're welcome. / Don't mention it.

Možemo to napraviti i sutra, nema veze.

We can do it tomorrow too, it doesn't matter.

Common Mistakes

❌ Ja ne imam vremena.

Incorrect — 'imati' has a fused negative; never 'ne imam'.

✅ Ja nemam vremena.

I don't have time. — note the genitive 'vremena' after the negated verb.

❌ Nema mlijeko u frižideru.

Incorrect — after 'nema' the noun must be genitive, not nominative/accusative.

✅ Nema mlijeka u frižideru.

There's no milk in the fridge.

❌ Imaju dobri restorani u gradu.

Incorrect — 'there are' is the frozen existential 'ima', and it takes the genitive, not a plural verb with a nominative.

✅ Ima dobrih restorana u gradu.

There are good restaurants in town.

❌ Ja sam dvadeset godina.

Incorrect — age is expressed with 'imati', not 'biti'; this calques English 'I am twenty'.

✅ Imam dvadeset godina.

I'm twenty (years old). — literally 'I have twenty years'.

❌ Imati ću novi posao.

Incorrect — before the future clitic the infinitive drops its final -i and fuses: 'imat ću'.

✅ Imat ću novi posao.

I'll have a new job.

Key Takeaways

Imati is imperfective, conjugates as a fully regular a-class verb (imam, imaš, ima…); to express acquiring use dobiti.
The negative is the fused nemam, nemaš, nema… — never ne imam.
Possession takes the accusative; age uses imati
- number of years, not biti.
Existence: affirmative ima "there is", negative nema "there isn't" — both frozen 3sg, and nema always takes the genitive.
Live with the idioms: Nema problema, Nema na čemu, Nema veze, Ima li…?

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