Questions & Answers about Jutarnji vlak dolazi rano.
Jutarnji is an adjective meaning morning (as in morning train, morning coffee, morning news).
- It comes from the noun jutro = morning.
- Form: nominative singular masculine adjective.
- It agrees with vlak (train), which is a masculine noun.
So jutarnji vlak literally means morning train.
In Croatian you normally use an adjective before a noun, not a bare noun, to describe it.
- jutro = morning (noun)
- jutarnji = morning (adjective: “morning-type”)
Using the noun directly, jutro vlak, is ungrammatical. You need the adjective form jutarnji to say morning train.
Croatian has no articles (no a/an and no the).
Definiteness (whether you mean a train or the train) is understood from context and situation, not from a separate word.
So Jutarnji vlak dolazi rano can mean:
- The morning train arrives early, or
- A morning train arrives early
depending on what you’re talking about.
Adjectives in Croatian agree with the noun in:
- Gender (masculine/feminine/neuter)
- Number (singular/plural)
- Case
Vlak (train) is:
- Masculine
- Singular
- Nominative (subject of the sentence)
So the adjective must match: jutarnji is masculine, singular, nominative. That’s why it ends in -i here.
Dolazi is:
- 3rd person singular
- Present tense of dolaziti (to come / to be coming).
It can correspond to several English forms, depending on context:
- comes – The morning train comes early.
- is coming – The morning train is coming early.
- For timetables: arrives – The morning train arrives early.
Croatian present tense covers both simple present and present continuous meanings.
In Croatian, as in English, the present tense is often used for timetables and scheduled future events:
- Jutarnji vlak dolazi rano.
= The morning train arrives early / comes early. (according to schedule)
This is similar to English:
- The train comes at 7.
- The plane leaves tomorrow.
So even though the form is present, it’s natural to use it for fixed future schedules.
Both can be used with trains, but there’s a nuance:
- dolaziti / doći – literally to come, to arrive, more general.
- Jutarnji vlak dolazi rano. – The morning train comes/arrives early.
- stizati / stići – to arrive, often emphasizing the moment of reaching the destination or on-time arrival.
- Jutarnji vlak stiže u 7 sati. – The morning train arrives at 7 o’clock.
In everyday speech, both are fine for talking about when a train arrives.
Rano means early.
In this sentence it is an adverb, describing when the train comes.
- dolazi rano = comes early / arrives early
It’s not an adjective here (so you don’t change it for gender/number/case); it stays rano.
Yes, Croatian word order is more flexible than English. All of these are grammatical:
- Jutarnji vlak dolazi rano. – neutral, “The morning train arrives early.”
- Vlak dolazi rano. – just “The train arrives early.” (no mention it’s the morning train)
- Vlak jutarnji dolazi rano. – possible but unusual; sounds marked/poetic.
- Rano dolazi jutarnji vlak. – emphasizes rano (“It’s early that the morning train comes”).
- Dolazi jutarnji vlak rano. – also possible; focus more on dolazi (the coming).
The most natural, neutral version with your exact meaning is the original: Jutarnji vlak dolazi rano.
Vlak is in the nominative singular.
- Nominative is used for the subject of the sentence (the thing doing the action).
- Here, vlak (train) is the thing that dolazi (comes).
So: Jutarnji vlak = the morning train as the subject.
You need plural forms of the noun, the adjective, and the verb:
- Jutarnji vlak → Jutarnji vlakovi (morning trains)
- dolazi (he/it comes) → dolaze (they come)
Full sentence:
- Jutarnji vlakovi dolaze rano.
= The morning trains arrive early.
Yes, that’s a perfectly normal sentence:
- Vlak dolazi rano. = The train arrives early.
By removing jutarnji, you lose the information that it’s the morning train. The basic structure and meaning (a train arrives early) stay the same.
Jutarnji is pronounced roughly: YOO-tar-nyi.
- ju – like you
- tar – like tar in English
- nji – the nj is one sound, like the ñ in Spanish señor, or ny in canyon.
So nj represents a palatal n sound [ɲ], written in Croatian as nj.