Dropping the "With"
In previous lessons, you used the preposition s or sa (with) alongside the instrumental case to talk about company—who you were with (e.g., s prijateljem, with a friend).
However, when you want to express the means, tool, or instrument used to perform an action (like cutting "with scissors," paying "by card," or traveling "by truck"), Croatian drops the preposition entirely. You just use the noun in the instrumental case on its own.
When describing the physical tools used to accomplish a task, apply the standard instrumental endings:
- Masculine nouns usually add -om, but they add -em if they end in a soft consonant (like c, č, ć, j, š, or ž).
- Feminine nouns ending in -a change the ending to -om.
- Plural forms have their own endings, such as -ama for plural-only words like škare (scissors).
Means of Payment
This same rule applies to intangible tools, like your method of payment. You don't pay "with a card" using the word for "with"; the card itself is the direct instrument of payment, so it simply takes the instrumental case.
Means of Transportation
In English, we say we travel "by" a vehicle. In Croatian, just like with tools, you express this by putting the vehicle directly into the instrumental case without any prepositions.
For example, kamion (truck) becomes kamionom. Nouns that end in -i, like kombi (van), insert a -j- before the ending, becoming kombijem.
