sviđati se / svidjeti se (to be pleasing / like)

Sviđati se is how Croatian says "to like" — but it does not work like English "like" at all. It is a dative-experiencer verb: the thing you like is the grammatical subject (nominative), and the person who does the liking sits in the dative. Sviđa mi se ova pjesma is literally "this song is-pleasing to-me" — the song is the subject, mi ("to me") is the experiencer. Master this inversion and you have cracked one of the genuinely alien structures of Croatian; get it wrong and you produce the single most recognisable beginner error.

Aspect

The pair is sviđati se (imperfective — the ongoing state of liking) and svidjeti se (perfective — the moment of coming to like, "to take a liking to"). The imperfective is overwhelmingly the everyday form: liking is a state, and states are imperfective. The perfective shows up mostly in the past, for the instant something first appealed to you: Odmah mi se svidjela ("I liked her right away / she appealed to me immediately"). Note the spelling split — imperfective sviđati has đ, perfective svidjeti has the dj sequence d + je. They are not interchangeable in writing.

Present tense

Grammatically sviđati se conjugates as a normal a-class verb (stem sviđa-), so all six persons exist. But in real use it lives almost entirely in the 3rd person, because the subject is the thing liked — and things are usually "he/she/it" or "they". The full paradigm matters mainly for the romantic Sviđaš mi se ("I fancy you", literally "you are pleasing to me"), where the liked thing is a person.

The two forms you will say a hundred times a day are the singular sviđa se (one thing pleases) and the plural sviđaju se (several things please). The verb agrees with the liked thing, never with the experiencer:

The experiencer is dative

The person who likes goes into the dative, almost always as a clitic in second position: mi (to me), ti (to you), mu (to him), joj (to her), nam (to us), vam (to you pl.), im (to them). This is the heart of the construction.

For a named experiencer, use a dative noun: Ani se sviđa film ("Ana likes the film", dative Ani). Read more on this pattern at dative with verbs and adjectives.

The l-participle

Regular for an a-class verb. Crucially, it agrees with the liked thing (the subject), not with the speaker — so a man saying he liked a song still uses feminine svidjala because pjesma is feminine.

Note the perfective masculine svidio (the dj before -o simplifies to di) against feminine svidjela and neuter svidjelo.

Perfect tense (perfekt)

The auxiliary je / su agrees in number with the liked thing; the participle agrees in gender and number with the liked thing. The dative experiencer is just a clitic riding along. The perfective is the natural choice here — it pinpoints the moment of liking.

Future I (futur prvi)

The infinitive drops -i before the clitic: sviđat će se. Used for predicting that something will appeal to someone.

Imperative

The imperative is rare and marked, because you cannot really command someone to be pleased. It exists in the sense "make yourself liked / win them over", but in everyday speech learners will almost never use it. Far more natural is to recommend with a different verb: Probaj! ("Try it!"). For completeness the forms are sviđaj se, sviđajmo se, sviđajte se, but flag these as fringe.

Conditional I (kondicional prvi)

The bih-clitics combine with the l-participle. Useful for softened opinions and hypotheticals.

Other forms

• Passive participle: none — sviđati se is intrinsically reflexive and cannot be made passive.
• Verbal adverb (present): sviđajući se exists but is vanishingly rare; you will not need it.

Key uses and government

1. The core pattern: dative + se + nominative subject

The fixed skeleton is [dative experiencer] + se + sviđa/sviđaju + [nominative thing]. Internalise it as a single template. Word order is flexible, but the second-position clitics (mi se, ti se, mu se) cluster together right after the first element.

2. Liking a person — romantic vs. general

Sviđaš mi se specifically means "I'm attracted to you / I have a crush on you". To say you like someone as a friend or find them nice, Croatians often soften it (Drag mi je, "he's dear to me") precisely because the bare sviđa mi se leans romantic for people.

3. Contrast with voljeti

Voljeti ("to love / to like a lot") is a plain transitive verb: Volim + accusative. It is stronger and structurally simpler. The rule of thumb: sviđati se = a reaction to something specific (this film, these shoes, that person), voljeti = a settled, often habitual fondness or love (Volim kavu "I love coffee"; Volim te "I love you"). The two are compared in full at voljeti vs sviđati se.

Common Mistakes

Key Takeaways

• Sviđati se is a dative-experiencer verb: the liked thing is the nominative subject, the liker is in the dative (usually a clitic mi/ti/mu/joj…).
• The verb agrees with the thing: sviđa (singular) vs sviđaju (plural); the participle agrees with the thing too (svidio film, svidjela pjesma).
• Aspect: sviđati se (impf, the ongoing state) vs svidjeti se (pf, the moment of liking, mostly past — svidjelo mi se).
• Sviđaš mi se = "I fancy you" (romantic); use voljeti
  • accusative for love or settled fondness.
• The se is inseparable; the clitics cluster in second position (Sviđa mi se…).