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Learn Hardcore Croatian: Pijan muškarac ne vozi. - The drunk man is not driving.

Hardcore Croatian
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/Pijan muškarac ne vozi.

Pijan muškarac ne vozi.

Pijan muškarac ne vozi.

The drunk man is not driving.

Breakdown of Pijan muškarac ne vozi.

man; adult male

Questions & Answers about Pijan muškarac ne vozi.

What does each word mean?

pijan = drunk
muškarac = man
ne = not
vozi = drives / is driving

A very literal gloss would be drunk man not drives.

Why is there no word for a or the?

Croatian does not have articles.

So muškarac can mean:

a man
the man

The exact meaning depends on context. In isolation, Pijan muškarac ne vozi is often understood as something like A drunk man doesn’t drive or The drunk man isn’t driving, depending on the situation.

Why is it pijan and not some other form?

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Because adjectives in Croatian must agree with the noun in:

gender
number
case

Muškarac is masculine singular nominative, so the adjective also appears in a matching masculine singular nominative form: pijan.

Compare:

pijan muškarac = a drunk man
pijana žena = a drunk woman
pijano dijete = a drunk child

Why is it pijan and not pijani?

This is a very common question.

In masculine singular nominative, some Croatian adjectives can have:

a short form: pijan
a long form: pijani

At a beginner level, the simplest thing to know is:

pijan muškarac is correct
pijani muškarac is also possible and very common

Roughly speaking, the short form can feel more purely descriptive, while the long form can sound more definite or more fixed as an attributive form. In real everyday Croatian, you will encounter both.

What case is muškarac in?

It is in the nominative singular, because it is the subject of the sentence.

Here, muškarac is the person doing the action of vozi.

You can also notice that this noun changes in other cases:

nominative: muškarac
accusative/genitive: muškarca
dative/locative: muškarcu

So the form muškarac specifically fits its role as the subject here.

What exactly is vozi?

Vozi is the 3rd person singular present tense of the verb voziti.

So:

ja vozim = I drive
ti voziš = you drive
on/ona vozi = he/she drives

With muškarac, vozi means:

he drives
or he is driving, depending on context

Does ne vozi mean doesn’t drive or isn’t driving?

It can mean either, depending on context.

Croatian present tense often covers both:

a habitual meaning: doesn’t drive
a current meaning: isn’t driving

So Pijan muškarac ne vozi could mean:

A drunk man doesn’t drive
The drunk man isn’t driving

English forces you to choose more clearly between those two, but Croatian often leaves that to context.

Why is ne written separately?

Because ne is the normal negation particle used with verbs, and it is usually written as a separate word:

ne vozi = does not drive
ne radi = does not work
ne govori = does not speak

There are a few common exceptions in Croatian where the negative form is written together, but with vozi the standard form is ne vozi.

Is the word order fixed?

Croatian word order is more flexible than English word order.

Pijan muškarac ne vozi is a normal, neutral order:

adjective + noun + negation + verb

But changing the order can change the emphasis.

A very important contrast is:

Pijan muškarac ne vozi. = A drunk man does not drive / The drunk man isn’t driving.
Muškarac ne vozi pijan. = The man does not drive drunk.

In the second sentence, pijan describes how he drives, not what kind of man he is. So word order can affect meaning.

How do you pronounce this sentence?

A beginner-friendly approximation is:

pijan ≈ PEE-yan
muškarac ≈ MOO-shka-rats
ne vozi ≈ neh VOH-zee

Useful sound notes:

j is like English y
š is like English sh
c is like ts

So pijan muškarac ne vozi sounds roughly like:

PEE-yan MOO-shka-rats neh VOH-zee

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