podrazumijevati (to imply / take for granted)

Podrazumijevati ("to imply, to entail, to take for granted, to mean by implication") is the verb formal Croatian uses when one thing necessarily brings another with it — when a right entails a duty, when a contract presupposes good faith, when a word carries an unstated meaning. It is built from razumjeti ("to understand") with the prefix pod- ("under"), so the literal image is to understand-underneath: to grasp what lies beneath the surface of what was said. The page has two jobs. First, the grammar: it takes an accusative object or a da-clause, and it produces the frozen impersonal Podrazumijeva se (da…) — "it goes without saying". Second, a spelling trap: the imperfective spells the root with -ije- (podrazumijevati), while the rarer perfective podrazumjeti uses -je-. Mixing those up is one of the commonest written errors even among natives.

Aspect

The pair is lopsided. Podrazumijevati is stative-imperfective — implication is a relation that simply holds — so it does almost all the work. The perfective podrazumjeti exists but is genuinely rare; you will read formal Croatian for a long time before meeting it. This is honest difficulty: treat podrazumijevati as the default and don't strain to produce the perfective.

The ije/je alternation up close

This is a jat reflex alternation, the same one behind vrijeme / vremena, dijete / djeca, mlijeko / mliječni. The long ě surfaces as -ije- under one set of conditions and short -je- under another. For this verb the practical rule is simply lexical: the imperfective keeps -ije- throughout its paradigm (podrazumijevam, podrazumijevao, podrazumijevajući), while the perfective podrazumjeti has -je-. Don't try to derive it phonetically on the fly — memorise the two stems.

Present tense

Podrazumijevati takes the regular -am present (an -avati/-ijevati verb of the -am/-aš class).

The l-participle

Regular -avati/-ijevati participle: masculine podrazumijevao.

Perfect tense (perfekt)

Clitic biti + l-participle. Because the verb is stative-imperfective, the perfekt typically reads as "implied / was understood to mean" over a stretch of time.

Future I (futur prvi)

The infinitive drops its final -i before the clitic: podrazumijevati → podrazumijevat ću. Note the -ije- stays put.

Imperative & Conditional — limited use

The imperative is essentially absent: you do not command someone to "imply" something, and an inanimate subject (a law, a word, a contract) cannot be addressed. The conditional does occur in hedged definitions and hypotheticals:

Other forms

• Verbal adverb (present): podrazumijevajući ("[while] implying / taking for granted"), useful in dense formal prose: …podrazumijevajući suglasnost svih strana ("…taking the consent of all parties for granted").
• Passive participle: podrazumijevan ("implied, understood"), most often as the adjective podrazumijevani / podrazumijevana ("default, implicit") — e.g. podrazumijevane postavke ("default settings"), a fully standard technical term.

Key uses and government

1. Accusative object: "X implies / entails Y"

The basic frame is subject + podrazumijevati + accusative — X entails / brings with it Y. The subject is usually an abstraction (a right, a job, a deal). See the accusative direct object and verb government.

2. The da-clause: "implies / takes for granted that…"

For a whole proposition, the verb takes a da-clause with a finite verb — "to take it for granted that…". This overlaps with reporting verbs like smatrati but is stronger: it asserts the proposition is built in, presupposed. See smatrati.

3. The frozen impersonal: Podrazumijeva se (da…)

The most characteristic use is the se-impersonal Podrazumijeva se — "it goes without saying / it is understood / naturally". With a da-clause it states an assumption everyone shares; standing alone it is a one-word "of course / obviously". The se removes any agent, which is exactly the impersonal tone. See the se-passive and impersonal.

Common Mistakes

Key Takeaways

• podrazumijevati (impf, podrazumijevam, stative) = "to imply / entail / take for granted" — the everyday form; the perfective podrazumjeti is genuinely rare.
• Spelling: imperfective root is -ije- (podrazumijevam), the rare perfective is -je- (podrazumjeti). Memorise both stems; don't derive on the fly.
• Government: accusative object ("X implies Y") or a da-clause ("implies that…").
• The signature frame is the frozen impersonal Podrazumijeva se (da…) = "it goes without saying" — and as a one-word reply, "of course".
• Future drops -i: podrazumijevat ću. The participle survives as the technical adjective podrazumijevani ("default, implicit").