Learn Hardcore Croatian: Napokon živimo u vremenu u kojem svatko može slobodno govoriti što misli. - Finally we live in a time in which everyone can freely say what they think.

Both are correct and very common.
Word order is flexible: you can also say Živimo napokon u vremenu..., but putting napokon at the start sounds more natural and emphatic.

Why is it živimo and not something like živimo se or žive?

Živimo is the 1st person plural present tense of živjeti (to live):

ja živim
ti živiš
on/ona/ono živi
mi živimo
vi živite
oni/one/ona žive

So živimo = “we live / we are living”. Croatian doesn’t have a separate continuous tense like English (are living); the simple present covers both.

There is no reflexive form here (živimo se would be wrong in this meaning), and žive is 3rd person plural (they live), which doesn’t fit the subject we.

Why is it u vremenu and not u vrijeme or u vrijemeu?

The noun is vrijeme (time; weather). With the preposition u meaning “in” (location or time), Croatian uses the locative case:

Nominative (dictionary form): vrijeme (time)
Locative singular: vremenu

Two things to notice:

The preposition u
- static “in” → locative:
- u gradu (in the city)
- u školi (in the school)
- u vremenu (in a time / in the time)
The j disappears in oblique cases:
- N: vrijeme
- G: vremena
- D/L: vremenu
- A: vrijeme
- I: vremenom

So u vremenu is the correct locative form meaning “in (a) time / in an era”.

What is u kojem doing here, and why is it kojem?

U kojem starts a relative clause: u kojem svatko može... = “in which everyone can...”

The relative pronoun is koji (which / who / that).
It must agree with its antecedent in gender and number, and then be put in the case required by its own role in the clause.

Here the antecedent is vremenu:

vremenu is neuter singular (from vrijeme).
After u, we again need the locative.

So we choose the form of koji that is neuter singular locative:

N sg neuter: koje
L sg neuter: kojem

Hence: u vremenu u kojem... = “in a time in which...”

You can’t say u vrijeme u koji here, because that would be the wrong case and wrong agreement.

Could we use gdje instead of u kojem, like u vremenu gdje svatko može...?

Colloquially, many speakers do say things like:

u vremenu gdje svatko može...

and people will understand you.

However, gdje literally means “where” (place/location), and is most natural with physical locations:

Mjesto gdje živim – The place where I live.

In more careful or standard language, for abstract nouns like vrijeme (time), a relative pronoun is preferred:

u vremenu u kojem svatko može...

So:

u kojem = more standard / precise.
gdje = common in speech, acceptable but less precise here.

What does svatko mean exactly, and how is it different from svi or svaki?

Svatko means “everyone / everybody” as a single, general person.

Svatko može slobodno govoriti...
= Everyone can freely speak...

Compare:

svi = “all (people), everyone” but grammatically plural:
- Svi mogu slobodno govoriti. – All (of them) can speak freely.
svaki = “each, every” and must be followed by a noun:
- Svaki čovjek može slobodno govoriti. – Every person can speak freely.
svatko = a standalone pronoun, grammatically singular, referring to people in general:
- Svatko može... – Everyone can...

So in your sentence, svatko is correct because you’re talking about any individual person in general.

Why is it svatko može, not svatko mogu?

In Croatian, svatko is grammatically singular, even though it refers to “everyone”.

So the verb must also be in the 3rd person singular:

Svatko može (everyone can) – singular
Svi mogu (all can / they all can) – plural

It’s the same idea as in English with verbs like everybody is (not everybody are).

What is slobodno here – an adjective or an adverb?

Here slobodno is an adverb, meaning “freely”.

The adjective is slobodan, slobodna, slobodno (free):

slobodan čovjek – a free man
slobodna zemlja – a free country
slobodno društvo – a free society

To say “to speak freely”, Croatian uses the adverb form:

slobodno govoriti – to speak freely

Adverbs in Croatian often have the same form as the neuter singular adjective, ending in -o, but functionally they answer “how?”:

govoriti slobodno – to speak freely
raditi marljivo – to work diligently

Why is the verb govoriti in the infinitive after može?

Može is the 3rd person singular of moći (can / be able to), which is a modal verb.
Modal verbs in Croatian are typically followed by an infinitive:

mogu raditi – I can work
može doći – he/she can come
svatko može slobodno govoriti – everyone can speak freely

So govoriti is the infinitive of govoriti (to speak / to talk / to say (repeatedly)), used because it depends on the modal može.

Why is it govoriti and not reći or kazati?

Croatian distinguishes between imperfective and perfective verbs:

govoriti – to speak / to talk / to say (in general, ongoing, repeated) – imperfective
reći / kazati – to say (once, a single act) – perfective

In your sentence, we’re talking about a general freedom to express opinions, not about saying one specific sentence:

svatko može slobodno govoriti što misli
= everyone can speak/say what they think (in general, whenever they want)

For general ability and repeated actions, Croatian prefers the imperfective verb govoriti.
If you used reći, it would sound more like the ability to say something once on a given occasion.

What is the role of što misli? Why not just govoriti svoje misli?

Što misli is a subordinate clause functioning as the object of govoriti:

govoriti što (netko) misli
= to say what (someone) thinks

Inside that clause:

što = “what”, an interrogative/relative pronoun functioning as the object of misli.
misli = “(he/she) thinks”, 3rd person singular.

So structurally:

govoriti – verb (to speak)
što misli – “what (he) thinks” = object of govoriti

You could say govoriti svoje misli (“speak one’s thoughts”), and it is grammatically correct, but it sounds more like voicing one’s own thoughts as such.
Govoriti što misli is the usual, idiomatic way to say “say what one thinks / speak one’s mind”.

Why is it što misli (singular) and not što misle, since we’re talking about “everyone”?

Again, this comes from svatko being grammatically singular.

The subject of misli is understood to be svatko:

Svatko može slobodno govoriti što (on/ona) misli.

The pronoun on/ona is usually omitted, but the verb misli stays in 3rd person singular to match svatko.

So:

Svatko misli – everyone (each person) thinks (singular)
Svi misle – all (people) think (plural)

You may hear colloquially: svatko kažu / svatko misle, but that’s considered ungrammatical in standard Croatian. The correct standard form here is što misli.

Why is there no comma before u kojem or što misli?

In standard Croatian punctuation:

Restrictive relative clauses (those that are essential to the meaning) are usually written without a comma:
- u vremenu u kojem svatko može...
  – “the kind of time in which everyone can...”, the clause is essential.
Object clauses (introduced by što, da, etc.) also generally do not take a comma:
- govoriti što misli – to say what (he) thinks

Commas are more typical with non‑restrictive (additional, parenthetical) clauses.
Here, both u kojem svatko može... and što misli are essential, so no comma is used in standard writing.