Elon.io is an online learning platform
We have an entire course teaching Croatian grammar and vocabulary.
Questions & Answers about Prst je mali.
Prst has no regular vowels! How do I pronounce a word with only consonants?
In Croatian, the letter r can act as a vowel (called a syllabic R). To pronounce prst, you roll your r slightly and let it carry the sound of the syllable. You will see this in other common words too, like vrt (garden) or crn (black).
Where is the word for 'The' in this sentence?
Croatian does not have articles like 'the', 'a', or 'an'. The word prst by itself can mean 'finger', 'a finger', or 'the finger'. We know it means 'the finger' here just from the context!
Why is the word for small mali and not mala or malo?
Adjectives in Croatian must match the gender of the noun they describe. Because prst is a masculine noun (it ends in a consonant), the adjective takes the masculine form mali. If it were describing a feminine word like ruka (hand), it would be mala.
Could I start the sentence with je to make it a question, like 'Je prst mali?'
No, because je is a special type of short word (an enclitic) that can never be the very first word in a sentence. To turn this into a question at the A1 level, you would add the question word li after the verb: Je li prst mali? (Is the finger small?).