Learn Croatian: Dođi što prije! - Come as soon as possible!

In Croatian, commands for a single, completed action usually take the perfective aspect. You are asking the person to complete the action of arriving, not to be in the continuous process of coming, so dođi is the natural choice.

I learned that što means 'what' or 'that'. How does it mean 'as... as possible' in this sentence?

When you put što directly in front of a comparative word (like prije), it creates the meaning of 'as [blank] as possible'. This is a very common and useful grammatical formula to memorize.

Doesn't prije usually mean 'before'?

Yes, prije is commonly used as a preposition meaning 'before'. However, it is also a comparative adverb meaning 'earlier' or 'sooner'. Combined with što, it literally means 'what sooner', which gives us the fluent translation 'as soon as possible'.

Could I use this što structure with other words?

Absolutely! You can combine što with any comparative adverb or adjective to express 'as [blank] as possible'. For example, što brže means 'as fast as possible' and što bolje means 'as well as possible'.