slati / poslati (to send)

Slati / poslati ("to send") is the verb you reach for the moment you have a phone in your hand: Pošalji mi to "Send me that", Šaljem ti link "I'm sending you the link". It is a clean aspect pair — imperfective slati, perfective poslati — but with one feature that catches every learner: the present stem jotates, so the l of slati surfaces as lj — šaljem, pošaljem, not *slam. Like every verb of transfer, it lives on the accusative thing + dative recipient frame, and in everyday speech the recipient is almost always a dative clitic (mi, ti, mu, joj, nam, vam, im).

Aspect

A tidy pair: the imperfective slati is the act/process of sending (or a habit), the perfective poslati is one completed send. The prefix po- is purely perfectivising here — it adds no spatial meaning, just "the sending got done".

So "I'm sending it now" is Šaljem (process), but "I sent it" / "I'll send it" is Poslao sam / Poslat ću (completed). "I send her flowers every year" — a habit — is the imperfective Svake godine joj šaljem cvijeće. For the underlying logic of the split, see the aspect overview.

Present tense

Both run on the jotated -šalj- stem with e-class endings. Note that the s of the stem becomes š as well: s + j → š, l + j → lj, giving šalj-.

As always, the perfective present pošaljem is not a "now" form: Čim pošaljem mejl, zovem te "As soon as I send the email, I'll call you". For the act in progress you need šaljem.

The l-participle

Both are regular -ati verbs in the participle (the jotation lives in the present only): masculine slao / poslao, feminine slala / poslala.

Perfect tense (perfekt)

Clitic biti + l-participle. The everyday "I sent" is the perfective poslao sam; the imperfective slao sam marks a habit or a repeated/ongoing past ("I used to send / I was sending").

Future I (futur prvi)

Poslati → poslat ću (drops -i); slati → slat ću. Never write poslati ću.

Imperative

Built on the -šalj- stem: perfective pošalji ("send [it]!") is the normal everyday request; imperfective šalji leans toward "keep sending".

Conditional I (kondicional prvi)

bih-clitics + l-participle — for polite requests and hypotheticals.

Other forms

• Passive participle: poslan / poslana / poslano ("sent") from poslati; slan / slana from slati. Note there is no jotation in the participle — it is poslan, regular. Common as a predicate: Paket je već poslan "The parcel has already been sent". (Some speakers also use poslat / poslata, a variant participle, but poslan is the recommended standard form.)
• Verbal adverb: imperfective šaljući ("[while] sending"). The perfective has no present adverb.

Key uses and government

1. The thing sent: accusative

The basic object — what you send — is the accusative: poslati poruku "send a message", poslati paket "send a parcel". See the accusative as direct object.

2. The recipient: dative (no preposition)

To whom you send something is the bare dative — no preposition, where English uses "to" or a double object. In speech the recipient is overwhelmingly a dative clitic: Pošalji mi to "Send me that", Poslao sam mu mejl "I sent him an email". This is the recipient-dative shared by all transfer verbs; see the dative indirect object and the broader pattern in verb government.

3. Destination vs recipient — keep them apart

A person recipient is the bare dative (poslati nekome); a place destination is a preposition + accusative (na + accusative "to/onto", u + accusative "into" — u Zagreb, but na otok for islands and some place names). You can have both at once: Poslao sam mu pismo na posao "I sent him a letter to work" — mu (dative person) and na posao (destination).

Common Mistakes

Key Takeaways

• slati (impf, šaljem, slao) = the act/habit of sending; poslati (pf, pošaljem, poslao) = one completed send.
• Present jotates l → lj (and s → š): the stem is -šalj- — šaljem, pošaljem, never *slam.
• Government: object = accusative; recipient = bare dative (clitic in everyday speech: Pošalji mi to).
• Imperative pošalji / šalji; passive participle poslan; future drops -i: poslat ću (never poslati ću).
• Keep recipient (dative person) apart from destination (preposition + case): Poslao sam mu pismo na posao.