Chinese (Mandarin)

Spanish

English

Hindi

Arabic (Modern Standard)

Portuguese

Bengali

Russian

Japanese

Punjabi

German

Javanese

Malay

Telugu

Vietnamese

Korean

French

Marathi

Tamil

Urdu

Turkish

Italian

Chinese, Yue / Cantonese

Thai

Gujarati

Chinese, Jin

Chinese, Min Nan

Dari

Farsi

Polish

Pashto

Kannada

Chinese, Xiang

Malayalam

Sundanese

Hausa

Odia

Burmese

Chinese, Hakka

Ukrainian

Bihari, Bhojpuri

Tagalog

Yoruba

Bihari, Maithili

Uzbek

Sindhi

Amharic

Fula

Romanian

Oromo

Igbo

Azerbaijani

Chinese, Gan

Dutch

Kurdish, Central

Kurdish, Northern

Kurdish, Southern

Malagasy

Lahnda, Saraiki

Nepali

Sinhalese

Chittagonian

Zhuang

Khmer

Turkmen

Assamese

Madurese

Somali

Marwari

Bihari, Magahi

Haryanvi

Hungarian

Chhattisgarhi

Greek

Chewa

Dakhini

Akan, Twi

Akan, Fante

Kazakh

Chinese, Min Bei

Sylheti

Zulu

Czech

Kinyarwanda

Marwari, Dhundhari

Haitian Creole

Chinese, Min Dong

Ilocano

Quechua

Kirundi

Swedish

Hmong

Shona

Uyghur

Hiligaynon

Mossi

Xhosa

Belarusian

Balochi

Croatian

### At the Optometry Clinic

When checking in a patient (**pacijent**) at the optician's (**optika**), you will often need to look up their surname (**prezime**). 

{{item:1082170}}

{{item:1082174}}

### Declining Masculine Surnames

In Croatian, when a man's name changes case, **both** his first name and his surname must decline. The surname takes the standard endings for masculine nouns.

| Case | First Name | Surname |
|---|---|---|
| Nominative | Ivan | Horvat |
| Genitive / Accusative | Ivana | Horvata |
| Dative | Ivanu | Horvatu |
| Instrumental | Ivanom | Horvatom |

Notice how the surname "Horvat" mirrors the case endings of "Ivan" across different roles in the sentence, such as the accusative for a direct object, the instrumental for "with", and the genitive for "from".

{{item:1082175}}

{{item:1082181}}

{{item:1082184}}

### Declining Feminine Surnames

Feminine surnames behave differently. While a woman's first name declines according to standard feminine rules, her surname **never changes**. It remains frozen in its nominative form regardless of the grammatical case.

| Case | First Name | Surname |
|---|---|---|
| Nominative | Ana | Horvat |
| Genitive | Ane | Horvat |
| Dative | Ani | Horvat |
| Accusative | Anu | Horvat |
| Instrumental | Anom | Horvat |

Observe how "Ana" changes, but "Horvat" does not.

{{item:1082180}}

{{item:1082178}}

{{item:1082183}}

### Putting It All Together

You must always pay attention to the patient's gender to know if their surname should decline.

Here are both rules side-by-side in the dative case, showing for whom the action is performed:

{{item:1082189}}

{{item:1082190}}

And again in the accusative case (following the preposition **za**):

{{item:1082191}}

Declension of surnames

adjective

adverb

conjunction

determiner

interjection

noun

numeral

particle

prep

preposition

pronoun

sentence

verb

Singular pronouns and to be (sam, si, je)

Noun genders (-Ø, -a, -o/-e)

Demonstrative pronouns (ovaj, ova, ovo)

Plural pronouns and to be (smo, ste, su)

Masculine plural nouns (-i)

Feminine plural nouns (-e)

Neuter plural nouns (-a)

Full verb to be (jesam, jesi)

Negative verb to be (nisam, nisi)

Yes/no questions (je li)

Wh- questions (tko, gdje)

Formal vs informal address (ti vs Vi)

Regular present tense (-ati)

Regular present tense (-iti)

Regular present tense (-jeti)

Verb negation (ne)

The verb to have (imati / nemati)

Inanimate direct objects

Feminine direct objects (-u)

Plural direct objects (-e, -a)

Accusative pronouns (me, te, ga, ju)

Adjective agreement

Plural adjectives

Accusative adjectives

Numbers 1 to 10 (jedan, dva, tri)

The locative case (-u)

Feminine locative (-i)

The verb to go (ići)

Destination (u, na)

The genitive case (-a)

Accusative pronouns (nas, vas, ga, ih)

Animate masculine accusative (-a)

Adjective agreement for animate masculine (-og, -eg)

The verb can (moći)

The verb must (morati)

The verb to want (htjeti, hoću)

The future tense (ću/ćeš + infinitive)

The past tense: l-participle (radio, radila)

Past tense word order (Prvo sam radio...)

Past tense with plural subjects (-li, -le, -la)

Feminine genitive singular (-e)

Possession and origin (od, iz)

Negative existence (nema)

Numbers 2, 3, and 4

Genitive plural (-a)

Numbers 11 to 20

Past tense negation (nisam)

Past tense questions (jeste li)

Dative singular

Dative pronouns (ti, mu, joj)

Past tense negation (nisam, nisi...)

Double object pronouns (mu ga, ti ju...)

Reflexive verbs (se)

Reflexive clitic word order

Commands and requests (radi, radite)

Plural demonstratives (ovi, ove, ova)

Possessive determiners (moj, naš, njegov)

Greetings (Dobar dan, doviđenja)

The body: Boli me glava

Directions (lijevo, desno, ravno)

There is, there are (ima)

Politeness (molim vas, hvala lijepa)

How you feel (Sviđa mi se)

Counting by tens to 100 (trideset, četrdeset...)

Quantifiers with the genitive case (malo, puno...)

Adjective agreement in the genitive singular (-og, -e)

Adjective agreement in the genitive plural (-ih)

Genitive prepositions (kod, do, bez...)

Asking what kind and which (kakav, koji)

Possessive determiners (njegov, njezin...)

Possessives in the accusative case

The reflexive possessive (svoj)

Indefinite pronouns (netko, nešto, neki)

Negative pronouns (nitko, ništa)

The verb to need (trebati)

Reciprocal verbs (se)

Introduction to verbal aspect

Perfective verbs with prefixes

Perfective verbs with stem changes

Irregular perfective verbs

Aspect in the past tense

Aspect in the future tense

Vehicular motion (voziti se, putovati)

Arrival and departure ('doći', 'otići')

Entering and exiting ('ući', 'izaći')

Singular accompaniment ('s', 'sa')

Question	Answer
patient (medical)	pacijent
optician's	optika
The new patient is waiting at the optician's.	Novi pacijent čeka u optici.
Ivan	Ivan
surname	prezime
Horvat	Horvat
His name is Ivan, and his surname is Horvat.	Njegovo ime je Ivan, a prezime Horvat.
We are waiting for the patient Ivan Horvat.	Čekamo pacijenta Ivana Horvata.
file	karton
Ana	Ana
Do you have the file for Ana Horvat?	Imate li karton za Anu Horvat?
diopter	dioptrija
Ana Horvat has a new diopter for glasses.	Ana Horvat ima novu dioptriju za naočale.
The doctor is talking with Ivan Horvat.	Liječnik razgovara s Ivanom Horvatom.
frame	okvir
She is talking with Ana Horvat about the frame.	Razgovara s Anom Horvat o okviru.
We are reading the diopter from Ivan Horvat's file.	Čitamo dioptriju iz kartona Ivana Horvata.
I am looking for your surname in the system.	Tražim vaše prezime u sustavu.
lens	leća
Do you want glasses or lenses?	Želite li naočale ili leće?
to measure	mjeriti
We are measuring the diopter for Ivan Horvat.	Mjerimo dioptriju Ivanu Horvatu.
We are measuring the diopter for Ana Horvat.	Mjerimo dioptriju Ani Horvat.
In the optometry clinic, we have lenses for Ivan Horvat and a frame for Ana Horvat.	U optici imamo leće za Ivana Horvata i okvir za Anu Horvat.