ovisiti / zavisiti (to depend)

Ovisiti ("to depend") is a verb English speakers reliably get wrong, because English depends on something and Croatian uses a different preposition-plus-case combination: o + locative. "It depends on you" is Ovisi o tebi — not *ovisi na tebe, not *ovisi od tebe. The second thing to fix early: in standard Croatian the verb is ovisiti; the form zavisiti is widespread in speech and dominant in Serbian and parts of Bosnia, but in standard Croatian writing you want ovisiti. The single most useful thing you can take from this page is the frame ovisiti o + locative and its frozen one-word answer Ovisi ("it depends").

Aspect

Ovisiti is imperfective — dependence is a standing state, not a bounded event, so it has no everyday perfective partner. You will not need a perfective; the verb stays imperfective across all its uses.

Regional note: ovisiti vs zavisiti

Both verbs mean "to depend" and both take o + locative in the Croatian standard. The split is sociolinguistic, not grammatical: ovisiti (regional: Croatian standard) is the form taught, written, and broadcast in Croatia; zavisiti (regional: Serbia, Bosnia; informal in Croatia) is normal across the eastern part of the area and you will hear it from Croatian speakers too, but it reads as non-standard in formal Croatian. A further Serbian pattern is zavisiti *od + genitive (*zavisi od tebe); this od-government is not standard Croatian. Stick with ovisiti o + locative.

Present tense

A regular i-class verb: stem ovis- + i-class endings.

The 3rd-singular ovisi is the workhorse — it is the bare answer Ovisi ("it depends") and the head of ovisi o… clauses.

The l-participle

Perfect tense (perfekt)

Clitic biti + l-participle.

Future I (futur prvi)

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

Imperative & conditional

• Imperative: rare and a little odd — ne ovisi o tuđem mišljenju ("don't depend on others' opinion") is conceivable as advice, but you will mostly meet the verb in statements. The forms, if needed, are ovisi, ovisimo, ovisite.
• Conditional I: bih-clitics + l-participle — Ovisilo bi o cijeni ("It would depend on the price"). Useful for hypotheticals.

Other forms

• Present verbal adverb: oviseći / more usually the adverbial ovisno o ("depending on") — Ovisno o vremenu, idemo na more ili u grad ("Depending on the weather, we'll go to the seaside or into town"). Ovisno o
  • locative is a high-frequency connective; learn it as a unit.
• Derived adjective: ovisan o
  • locative ("dependent on; addicted to") — ovisan o nikotinu ("addicted to nicotine"), financijski ovisan o roditeljima ("financially dependent on parents"). The derived noun ovisnost ("dependence; addiction") and ovisnik ("an addict") share the o + locative frame.
• Passive participle: none — the verb is intransitive.

Key uses and government

1. ovisiti o + locative — "depend on"

The thing depended on takes o + locative. This is the locative of reference/topic — the same o you meet in razgovarati o ("talk about") and misliti o ("think about"). The English preposition is "on", but the Croatian one is o, and it pulls the locative, not the accusative. See the locative.

2. The frozen answer: Ovisi ("it depends")

On its own, Ovisi is the standard one-word reply to "will you…?", "is it…?", "can we…?" — exactly English "it depends". You can leave it bare or continue with ovisi o… or ovisi o tome (kako/koliko/hoće li)….

3. The adjective ovisan o + locative — "dependent / addicted to"

The adjective derived from the verb keeps the very same government: ovisan o + locative. It covers both neutral dependence (ovisan o pomoći "dependent on help") and addiction (ovisan o drogi "addicted to drugs").

Common Mistakes

Key Takeaways

• ovisiti is the standard Croatian form; zavisiti is regional (Serbian/Bosnian, informal in Croatia) — prefer ovisiti in writing.
• Government is o + locative: ovisi o tebi, ovisi o vremenu — never *na
  • accusative, never (in Croatian) od
    • genitive.
• The frozen Ovisi = "it depends" as a complete one-word answer; expand with ovisi o tome….
• The connective ovisno o + locative = "depending on" — learn it as a fixed unit.
• The adjective ovisan o + locative = "dependent/addicted to" (noun ovisnost, ovisnik) keeps the same frame.