Learn Croatian: Novi restorani su lijepi. - The new restaurants are beautiful.

Restoran is a regular masculine noun. When it is the subject of a sentence (the nominative case), we make it plural by simply adding -i to the end, giving us restorani.

Why do both novi and lijepi end in -i?

In Croatian, adjectives must match the noun they describe. Because restorani is masculine and plural, the adjectives nov (new) and lijep (beautiful) also take the masculine plural ending -i.

Why is su placed exactly there? Could it start the sentence?

Su cannot start a sentence. It is a short, unstressed verb form (a clitic) that usually needs to go in the second position of a sentence. Here, the whole phrase Novi restorani acts as the first block of information, so su sits naturally right after it.

Is lijepi the best word for a restaurant? In English, we usually say a restaurant is nice.

Yes! In Croatian, the word lijep is used much more broadly than beautiful is in English. It is the standard, everyday way to say that a place, object, or person is nice, pretty, or pleasant.