Talking About the Past
To talk about things that happened in the past, Croatian uses the past tense (Perfekt). You will frequently pair it with time words indicating when an event took place, such as jučer (yesterday), sinoć (last night), and jutros (this morning).
The past tense is formed using two parts: a short form of the verb biti (to be) and a special form of the main verb called the l-participle.
Forming the Singular l-participle
To make the singular l-participle, start with the infinitive verb (like raditi or naručiti), remove the final -ti, and add a new ending based on the gender of the subject:
- For masculine subjects (he), add -o (e.g., radio, naručio).
- For feminine subjects (she), add -la (e.g., radila, naručila).
Putting It Together
Since these examples describe actions done by a single person (he or she), the auxiliary verb you need is je (the third-person singular of biti).
Because je is a clitic, it must sit in the second position in the sentence. This is usually right after the opening word or phrase, such as a time word, a subject pronoun, or a question word.
| He worked yesterday. | Jučer je radio. |
| Where did she work yesterday? | Gdje je ona jučer radila? |
Notice how the verb ending shifts to match whether a man or a woman is performing the action. Here are more examples showing masculine and feminine forms alongside the new time words:
| He had breakfast this morning. | Jutros je doručkovao. |
| She had breakfast early this morning. | Ona je jutros rano doručkovala. |
| The brother ordered a sandwich last night. | Brat je sinoć naručio sendvič. |
| The sister called the brother last night. | Sestra je sinoć nazvala brata. |
