The Periphrastic Passive (biti + participle) | Croatian Grammar

The periphrastic passive is Croatian's analytic "be + done" voice: biti plus a passive participle. Pismo je napisano "The letter has been written", Most je sagrađen 1900. godine "The bridge was built in 1900", Knjiga će biti objavljena "The book will be published". Structurally it looks like the English passive and maps onto it almost one-to-one, which is exactly the trap: English leans on the passive constantly, while Croatian leans away from it. The single most important lesson on this page is not how to build the form — that is easy — but when not to. A Croatian text littered with biti-passives reads like a translation; native style prefers the active or the se-passive.

The form: biti + passive participle

Combine a form of biti "to be" (carrying the tense) with the passive participle (carrying the lexical meaning). The participle is an adjective, so it agrees with the subject in gender and number — this is the part learners most often get wrong.

Tense	biti form	Example	Meaning
present	je / su	Pismo je napisano.	The letter is/has been written.
past	bio/bila + je	Most je bio sagrađen.	The bridge had been built.
future	će biti	Knjiga će biti objavljena.	The book will be published.
conditional	bio/bila bi	Posao bi bio završen.	The job would be finished.

Pismo je napisano i poslano jučer.

The letter was written and sent yesterday. — neuter 'pismo' → neuter participles 'napisano', 'poslano'.

Odluka će biti donesena sutra.

The decision will be made tomorrow. — future passive 'će biti donesena', feminine to match 'odluka'.

Agreement is the heart of it

Because the participle is a full adjective, it must match the subject's gender and number. This is unlike English, where "was written" never changes. A masculine subject gives -Ø, feminine -a, neuter -o, and the plural endings follow suit.

Subject	Passive	Meaning
most (m.)	Most je sagrađen.	The bridge was built.
kuća (f.)	Kuća je sagrađena.	The house was built.
selo (n.)	Selo je razoreno.	The village was destroyed.
vrata (n. pl.)	Vrata su otvorena.	The door is/was opened.
pjesme (f. pl.)	Pjesme su otpjevane.	The songs were sung.

Sve karte su prodane.

All the tickets are sold. — feminine plural 'karte' → 'prodane'.

Vrata su zaključana, nitko ne može ući.

The door is locked, nobody can get in. — neuter plural 'vrata' → 'zaključana'.

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The biti-passive has two moving parts: biti handles the tense, the participle handles the meaning AND agrees with the subject like an adjective. Get the agreement from the noun's gender, not from English: kuća is feminine, so sagrađena, even though English "built" never changes.

Action passive vs resultant state

A single biti-passive sentence can be read two ways, and the difference matters.

Action passive — an event happened, often perfective: Pismo je napisano "The letter was written" (someone wrote it).
Resultant state — a current condition, the lingering result: Vrata su zatvorena "The door is closed" (it is in a closed state right now).

English splits these with different words ("was opened" vs "is open"); Croatian uses the same participle and lets context decide. With a perfective verb and a time adverb the action reading dominates; with no agent and a stative feel the resultant-state reading takes over.

Trgovina je zatvorena nedjeljom.

The shop is closed on Sundays. — resultant state, not an event.

Trgovina je zatvorena prošlog mjeseca.

The shop was closed (down) last month. — action reading, forced by the past time phrase.

Prozor je razbijen — netko ga je razbio noćas.

The window is broken — someone smashed it last night. — the state 'razbijen' plus the active that caused it.

Naming the agent: rare, and the od strane trap

Croatian can name the doer in a passive, but it is rare and stylistically marked. There are two devices, and one of them is a calque you should generally avoid.

od strane + genitive "by (the side of)" — widely used in bureaucratic and journalistic writing, but flagged by purists and good editors as a heavy, foreign-flavoured calque. Recognise it; prefer not to write it.
Instrumental — possible mainly with non-human, instrument-like agents (natural forces, means), not with ordinary human doers.

In practice, when you want to name the doer, Croatian does not patch up the passive at all — it simply goes active, putting the doer back in the subject slot.

Knjigu je napisao poznati autor.

A famous author wrote the book. — the natural Croatian: active, doer as subject. (English would say 'the book was written by…').

Grad je razoren potresom.

The city was destroyed by an earthquake. — instrumental 'potresom' works because the agent is a force, not a person.

Odluka je donesena od strane uprave.

The decision was made by the management. — grammatical, but 'od strane' is a clumsy calque; better: 'Odluku je donijela uprava'.

Why Croatian avoids the passive — a register note

This is the insight that separates B1 grammar from native-sounding Croatian. English uses the passive freely — in science, news, instructions, everyday speech ("my bike got stolen", "you're invited"). Croatian does not. The biti-passive is felt as formal and written: it lives in official documents, legal text, academic prose, and headlines, and it sounds stiff in conversation. For the same idea, Croatian reaches for one of two lighter tools:

The se-passive for processes and general statements — Knjige se prodaju rather than Knjige su prodavane.
The active voice with a reordered, fronted object when the patient is the topic — Knjigu je napisao X rather than Knjiga je napisana od strane X. Word order does the topicalising work that English needs the passive for; see word order in subordinate clauses and the broader survey of passive strategies.

English passive	Clumsy literal Croatian	Natural Croatian
The book was written by Krleža.	Knjiga je napisana od strane Krleže.	Knjigu je napisao Krleža. (active)
Croatian is spoken here.	Hrvatski je govoren ovdje.	Ovdje se govori hrvatski. (se)
Houses are being built.	Kuće su građene.	Kuće se grade. (se)

Ovdje se govori hrvatski.

Croatian is spoken here. — the se-passive, not 'Hrvatski je govoren'.

Most je sagrađen 1900. godine.

The bridge was built in 1900. — the biti-passive IS natural here: a finished, dated, agentless result.

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If you can name the doer, go active. If the doer is irrelevant and the action is a process, go se. Reserve the biti-passive for the cases it does best: a finished, agentless result, often in formal or written register — Most je sagrađen, Odluka je donesena, Posao je završen.

When the biti-passive IS the right choice

To be fair to the construction: it has a real home. It is the cleanest option when the result matters, the agent is unknown or irrelevant, and the register is formal or written — exactly the contexts where it appears on its own page among other spoken-vs-written contrasts.

Spomenik je podignut u čast palih boraca.

The monument was erected in honour of the fallen soldiers. — formal, agentless, finished result: a perfect biti-passive.

Posao mora biti završen do petka.

The job has to be finished by Friday. — passive with a modal, focusing on the required result.

Roman je preveden na dvadeset jezika.

The novel has been translated into twenty languages. — agentless result, naturally passive.

Common Mistakes

❌ Kuća je sagrađen.

Incorrect agreement — 'kuća' is feminine, so the participle is 'sagrađena'.

✅ Kuća je sagrađena.

The house was built. — feminine participle.

❌ Knjiga je napisana od strane Krleže.

Stilted calque — Croatian prefers the active when naming the agent.

✅ Knjigu je napisao Krleža.

Krleža wrote the book. — active voice, doer as subject.

❌ Hrvatski je govoren u Hrvatskoj.

Unnatural — for a general statement Croatian uses the se-passive, not biti + participle.

✅ U Hrvatskoj se govori hrvatski.

Croatian is spoken in Croatia. — the se-passive.

❌ Vrata su otvoren cijelu noć.

Incorrect — 'vrata' is neuter plural, so neuter plural 'otvorena'.

✅ Vrata su bila otvorena cijelu noć.

The door was open all night. — neuter plural agreement, past 'bila'.

Key Takeaways

The periphrastic passive is biti + passive participle; biti carries the tense, the participle carries the meaning and agrees in gender and number (sagrađen / sagrađena / sagrađeno).
It reads either as an action (often perfective: Pismo je napisano) or as a resultant state (Vrata su zatvorena); context decides.
Naming the agent is rare: avoid the calque od strane + genitive; use the instrumental only for forces, and otherwise go active.
Croatian uses the passive far less than English. Reserve the biti-passive for finished, agentless results in formal/written register.
For everyday "passive" meaning, prefer the se-passive (Knjige se prodaju) or the active with a fronted object (Knjigu je napisao X).

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