očekivati (to expect)

Očekivati ("to expect") is the verb you reach for when you are anticipating something — a person, an outcome, a baby, a delivery. It is overwhelmingly imperfective: expecting is a sustained state of anticipation, not a single completed act, so there is no everyday perfective partner. Its present runs on the -uje- stem (očekujem), the same -iva- → -uje- swap you see across a large family of verbs. The two things to master here are its government — accusative object or da-clause — and the way it differs from its emotional cousin nadati se ("to hope"), which takes the dative. English blurs "expect" and "hope" with the same syntax; Croatian splits them by case.

Aspect

Očekivati is imperfective and, for practical purposes, has no living perfective partner. Anticipation is an ongoing state, so there is nothing to "complete" — you do not finish expecting, you simply stop. When a single completed realisation is meant, Croatian switches to a different verb entirely (dočekati "to wait until something arrives / to greet on arrival"), not to a perfective of očekivati.

Because it is stative, očekivati lives mostly in the present and past, and you will rarely need an imperative. See aspect: the overview.

Present tense

The infinitive očekivati swaps its -iva- for -uje- in the present.

The l-participle

A regular -ati verb on the stem očekiva-: masculine očekivao (vocalised -l), feminine očekivala.

Perfect tense (perfekt)

Clitic biti + l-participle. Because očekivati is imperfective, its past reads as "was expecting / had been expecting" — a sustained anticipation, very often one that was disappointed (nisam to očekivao, "I didn't expect that").

Future I (futur prvi)

The infinitive ends in -ti, so it drops its final -i before the clitic: očekivat ću (never očekivati ću).

Imperative

A true imperative is rare — you cannot easily order someone to anticipate. When it does appear, it is the softened "(don't) count on it" sense: Ne očekuj čuda ("Don't expect miracles").

Conditional I (kondicional prvi)

bih-clitics + l-participle — used to hedge an expectation: "I would expect…".

Other forms

• Present verbal adverb: očekujući ("[while] expecting / in anticipation of"), common in formal prose: Čekali su u tišini, očekujući najgore ("They waited in silence, expecting the worst").
• Passive participle: očekivan, očekivana, očekivano ("expected"). Frozen as an adjective in očekivan ishod ("an expected outcome") and the very common adverb/adjective neočekivan ("unexpected").
• The se-passive — očekuje se: the high-frequency impersonal "it is expected", staple of news and forecasts. See the se-passive and impersonal.

Key uses and government

1. Direct object: accusative

The default object of očekivati is the accusative — the person or thing you are anticipating. This covers waiting for someone, and the special idiom očekivati dijete ("to be expecting a baby").

See the accusative as direct object.

2. A da-clause: "expect that / expect someone to…"

When you expect an action or outcome, Croatian uses a finite da-clause, not an infinitive. English "I expect you to come" has no infinitive equivalent here — it becomes Očekujem da dođeš ("I expect that you come"). The verb inside the da-clause carries its own tense.

Croatian strongly prefers the da-clause over an infinitive after očekivati; see da-clause vs infinitive.

3. The se-passive: očekuje se

To say "it is expected (that)…" without naming who expects, use the impersonal očekuje se. This is the register of weather forecasts, market reports, and official announcements.

4. očekivati (expect) vs nadati se (hope) — accusative vs dative

This is the contrast worth internalising. Expecting is a neutral prediction — you think something will happen, good or bad — and it takes the accusative or a da-clause. Hoping is a desire that something good will happen, and nadati se takes the dative (the thing hoped for goes into the dative, with no preposition). You can expect bad news; you do not hope for it.

See nadati se for the full dative pattern, and the government overview for why Croatian splits these meanings across cases.

Common Mistakes

Key Takeaways

• očekivati (impf, očekujem, očekivao) = "to expect" — note the -iva- → -uje- present swap; there is no everyday perfective partner.
• Government: accusative object (očekujem te, očekuju dijete) or a finite da-clause (očekujem da dođeš) — not an infinitive.
• The impersonal se-passive očekuje se ("it is expected") is the forecast/news workhorse.
• Keep expect ≠ hope: očekivati
  • accusative/da is a neutral prediction; nadati se
    • dative is a positive wish.
• Future drops -i: očekivat ću (never očekivati ću).