pričati / ispričati (to tell/chat)

Pričati ("to chat, to tell, to talk") is one of the most useful everyday verbs in Croatian — it is what you do when you tell a story, chat with a friend, or talk about your day. Its perfective partner ispričati ("to recount, to tell in full") rounds the telling off: you pričaš priču (you're telling a story) and then you ispričaš je do kraja (you tell it through to the end). The verb juggles several patterns at once: an accusative story, a dative listener, s + instrumental for the person you chat with, and o + locative for the topic. And there is one trap worth flagging on day one: the reflexive ispričati se does not mean "tell oneself" — it means "to apologise" (Ispričavam se! "Sorry!").

Aspect

This is a clean prefixal aspect pair: imperfective pričati (the activity of telling/chatting) and perfective ispričati (one complete recounting, told to the end), formed with the prefix iz- → is-. Pričati describes the talking as it unfolds; ispričati views one telling as a finished whole.

So "I'm telling you a story" is pričam ti priču (in progress), while "I'll tell you the whole story" is ispričat ću ti cijelu priču (rounded off). See forming aspect pairs by suffixation and prefixation.

Present tense (a-class)

Pričati is a clean a-class verb: stem pričaj- / pričam with the theme vowel -a-.

The 3rd-person plural is the a-class -aju: pričaju (not *priče). As always, the perfective present ispričam is not a "now" tense — it appears in kad-clauses and conditions: Kad ti ispričam, nećeš vjerovati ("When I tell you, you won't believe it").

The l-participle

Perfect tense (perfekt)

Clitic biti + l-participle. The imperfective pričao sam = "I was telling / I used to talk"; the perfective ispričao sam = "I told (the whole thing)".

Future I (futur prvi)

The infinitive drops its final -i before the clitic: ispričat ću.

Imperative

a-class imperatives in -aj, -ajmo, -ajte. The perfective ispričaj! asks for the full telling; the imperfective pričaj! means "go on, keep talking / do tell".

Conditional I (kondicional prvi)

The bih-clitics + l-participle.

Other forms

• Passive participle: ispričan ("told, recounted") — Priča je ispričana iz djetetove perspektive ("The story is told from a child's perspective"). The imperfective gives pričan, rarer.
• Present verbal adverb: pričajući ("[while] chatting/telling") — Vrijeme je prošlo pričajući o starim danima ("Time passed chatting about the old days"). Perfectives have no present adverb.
• Derived noun: priča ("a story, a tale") is one of the most common nouns in the language, sharing the verb's root.

Key uses and government

1. The story told: accusative + dative listener

The thing told (priču, vic, istinu, sve) takes the accusative; the person told takes the bare dative — no preposition, exactly as English "tell someone something". The natural order is verb + dative + accusative: ispričati nekomu nešto. See the accusative object and the dative with verbs.

2. pričati s(a) + instrumental — "chat with someone"

For chatting with someone (the conversational, two-way sense), use s(a) + the instrumental, just like razgovarati. Here pričati is intransitive — no accusative — and overlaps heavily with razgovarati.

3. pričati o + locative — "talk about something"

The topic takes o + the locative — the same frame as razgovarati o and misliti o.

4. pričati vs reći vs razgovarati

These three blur for English speakers. Pričati is telling/chatting as an activity (imperfective, durative); reći is a single completed utterance ("say one thing"); razgovarati is two-way conversation, always s + instrumental, never with a story-object. You pričaš priču but you kažeš jednu rečenicu and you razgovaraš s nekim. See razgovarati and govoriti / reći.

5. The reflexive twist: ispričati se — "to apologise"

Add se and the meaning shifts entirely: ispričati se (pf) / ispričavati se (impf) = "to apologise". The person you apologise to takes the dative; the reason takes zbog + genitive or što + clause. The everyday "Sorry!" is Ispričavam se! (imperfective present) or Oprosti!.

Common Mistakes

Key Takeaways

• pričati (impf, pričam, a-class) = chat/tell as activity; ispričati (pf) = recount in full. 3pl pričaju.
• Story = accusative, listener = bare dative: ispričati nekomu nešto.
• pričati s + instrumental = chat with someone; pričati o + locative = talk about something.
• Keep apart from reći (one utterance) and razgovarati (two-way, s
  • instrumental, no story-object).
• ispričati se / ispričavati se = "to apologise" (+ dative person); Ispričavam se! = "Sorry!".