Sud je u gradu.

Je is the 3rd person singular present form of the verb biti (to be).

So:

• sud = court
• je = is
• u gradu = in the city / in town

Croatian often uses forms of biti exactly where English uses am / is / are.
So Sud je u gradu is structurally very close to The court is in the city.

Gradu is in the locative singular.

The preposition u usually takes:

• locative when it means in / inside / at a place
• accusative when it means into a place, showing movement

So:

• u gradu = in the city / in town → location, so locative
• u grad = into the city / into town → movement, so accusative

That is why the sentence uses gradu, not grad.

Yes, u can mean both, depending on the case.

In this sentence, u + locative shows a fixed location:

• Sud je u gradu. = The court is in the city.

If you wanted movement toward the inside of a place, you would use u + accusative:

• Sud ide u grad. = The court is going into town.
  (Semantically odd, but grammatically it shows the pattern.)

So the case after u tells you whether it means in or into.

Sud is a masculine noun.

You can tell partly from the dictionary form: many Croatian masculine nouns end in a consonant, and sud does.

That matters for agreement in other contexts, for example with adjectives:

• velik sud = a big court
• općinski sud = municipal court

In this sentence, the verb form je does not show gender, so you do not see the gender directly there.

It can mean either city or town, depending on context.

So u gradu can be understood as:

• in the city
• in town

Croatian grad is broader than English city, so translators often choose the English word that sounds most natural in context.

Croatian does not have articles like English a / an / the.

So a noun like sud can mean:

• a court
• the court

Which one is intended depends on context.

Likewise, u gradu could be understood as:

• in a city
• in the city
• in town

English has to choose an article, but Croatian usually leaves that to context.

No, Croatian word order is fairly flexible, although some orders sound more neutral than others.

Sud je u gradu is a normal, neutral way to say it.

You may also see:

• U gradu je sud.

This can sound more like emphasizing the location, something like:

• In the city is the court
• or more naturally, The court is in the city

So the meaning stays similar, but the emphasis can shift.

Grammatically, sud usually means court as an institution or legal body.

But in real usage, people may sometimes use it loosely to refer to the courthouse, depending on context.

So this sentence could be understood as:

• the court is located in the city
• the courthouse is in the city

If the context is about government institutions, court is the safer interpretation. If the context is about buildings and locations, English might naturally say courthouse.

A simple approximation for an English speaker is:

• sood yeh oo GRAH-doo

A few notes:

• u sounds like oo in food
• je sounds roughly like yeh
• gradu has the stress on the first syllable: GRA-du

A more careful breakdown:

• Sud = sood
• je = yeh
• u = oo
• gradu = GRA-doo

Not in a normal sentence like this.

In the present tense, Croatian sometimes omits the verb to be in very informal styles, headlines, or special contexts, but standard Croatian normally keeps it here:

• Sud je u gradu.

So for learners, the safe rule is:
if English needs is, Croatian usually needs je too in this kind of sentence.

The base form is grad.

This is the form you would find in a dictionary. Then it changes by case:

• grad = nominative singular
• gradu = locative singular here

So the sentence shows a very common pattern:

• dictionary form: grad
• after u for location: u gradu