Essential Culinary Herbs
Adding flavor to your meals is a great way to practice vocabulary. In Croatian, most culinary herbs are masculine nouns, such as peršin (parsley), lovor (bay leaf), and korijander (coriander).
Because these masculine nouns are inanimate (non-living things), their form doesn't change when they are used as a direct object—like when you add them to a recipe!
| Add parsley and bay leaf to the soup. | Dodaj peršin i lovor u juhu. |
| When I cook the soup, I will add dill and coriander. | Kad budem kuhao juhu, dodat ću kopar i korijander. |
Cooking "With" Herbs
To describe a dish made with a specific ingredient, use the preposition s (with) followed by the Instrumental case.
For masculine nouns ending in a consonant, you typically add the suffix -om (or -em). Watch out for the "fleeting a"—words like bosiljak (basil) and kopar (dill) drop their final -a- when an ending is added, becoming bosiljkom and koprom.
| I like eating pasta with parsley and basil. | Volim jesti tjesteninu s peršinom i bosiljkom. |
| Meat with bay leaf and rosemary has an excellent taste. | Meso s lovorom i ružmarinom ima odličan okus. |
| Do you like salad with dill and yogurt? | Voliš li salatu s koprom i jogurtom? |
For masculine herbs that end in a vowel, like origano, the ending in the Instrumental case is usually just -m.
| Pasta with oregano and tomatoes is very tasty. | Tjestenina s origanom i rajčicama je vrlo ukusna. |
Feminine Herbs
While most common herbs are masculine, a few, like kadulja (sage), are feminine nouns ending in -a.
Just like other feminine nouns, the -a changes to -u when the herb is the direct object of a sentence.
| Put the chives and sage on the table. | Stavi vlasac i kadulju na stol. |
When used with the preposition s (with) in the Instrumental case, the feminine -a ending changes to -om.
| I am drinking tea with sage because I am sick. | Pijem čaj s kaduljom jer sam bolestan. |