Breakdown of Studentica voli učiti hrvatski ujutro.
Questions & Answers about Studentica voli učiti hrvatski ujutro.
Studentica means a (female) student, usually a university student.
- student = male student
- studentica = female student
The ending -ica is a common feminine suffix in Croatian. Many feminine nouns are built from a masculine base + -ica:
- učitelj (male teacher) → učiteljica (female teacher)
- pjevač (male singer) → pjevačica (female singer)
So studentica is grammatically feminine, singular, nominative (the basic “dictionary” form, used for the subject of the sentence).
Studentica is in the nominative singular.
The nominative case is normally used for:
- the subject of a sentence (the “doer” of the action)
- the form you find in the dictionary
In Studentica voli učiti hrvatski ujutro, the subject (who likes studying) is studentica, so it must be nominative.
Voli is the 3rd person singular present tense of the verb voljeti – to like / to love.
Present tense of voljeti:
- (ja) volim – I like
- (ti) voliš – you like (sg., informal)
- (on/ona/ono) voli – he/she/it likes
- (mi) volimo – we like
- (vi) volite – you like (pl. or formal)
- (oni/one/ona) vole – they like
So studentica voli = the (female) student likes / loves.
In Croatian, when you use voljeti (to like/love) followed by another verb, that second verb stays in the infinitive:
- volim čitati – I like to read
- voli plesati – she likes to dance
- volimo putovati – we like to travel
So:
- voli učiti = she likes to study / she likes studying
If you said studentica uči hrvatski, that would mean the student is studying Croatian (now / regularly).
With voli učiti, the focus is on the liking of the activity, not directly on doing it at the moment.
Both can relate to learning, but they’re used differently:
- učiti = to learn / to study (general activity of learning, e.g. vocabulary, grammar, homework)
- učiti hrvatski – to learn/study Croatian (language)
- studirati = to study as a field of study, usually at university
- studirati hrvatski jezik i književnost – to major in Croatian language and literature
- studirati medicinu – to study medicine
In this sentence, studentica voli učiti hrvatski means she likes the activity of learning Croatian, not necessarily that Croatian is her university major.
Hrvatski here is:
- an adjective (Croatian) used as a noun
- masculine singular accusative, but for inanimate masculine nouns, the accusative = nominative, so it looks just like nominative.
Literally, the full phrase would be:
- učiti hrvatski jezik – to learn the Croatian language
But in everyday speech, Croatians often drop jezik and just say hrvatski when it’s obvious they mean the language:
- Govorim hrvatski. – I speak Croatian.
- Učim hrvatski. – I’m learning Croatian.
So hrvatski is the direct object of učiti, in the accusative case.
Croatian has no articles like English a/an or the.
So:
- studentica can mean a student or the student, depending on context.
- hrvatski can mean Croatian or the Croatian language, again depending on context.
The difference that English expresses with a / the is usually shown in Croatian by context, word order, or stress, not by a separate word.
Ujutro functions as an adverbial expression of time: in the morning.
Historically, it comes from u (in) + jutro (morning), but in modern Croatian it is usually written as one word and treated like a time adverb:
- ujutro – in the morning (general, repeated habit)
- jutros – this morning (today’s morning, specific)
So:
- Studentica voli učiti hrvatski ujutro. – She likes studying Croatian in the morning (as a habit).
- Studentica je jutros učila hrvatski. – She studied Croatian this morning (today).
Word order in Croatian is more flexible than in English, because cases show who does what. You can change the order to change emphasis, not basic meaning.
All of these are grammatically possible:
- Studentica voli učiti hrvatski ujutro. – neutral, subject-first.
- Ujutro studentica voli učiti hrvatski. – emphasizes in the morning.
- Hrvatski voli učiti studentica ujutro. – strong emphasis on Croatian.
The original sentence is the neutral, most natural order: Subject – Verb – Object – Time.
The sentence uses:
- present tense of voljeti: voli
- infinitive of učiti, which is an imperfective verb
Imperfective aspect describes ongoing, repeated, or habitual actions. So voli učiti suggests:
- She generally / habitually likes studying Croatian in the mornings,
- not just once.
If you wanted a perfective verb of learning (a completed act), you’d use naučiti (to learn, to have learned):
- Studentica je naučila hrvatski. – The student (has) learned Croatian.
To negate, you usually put ne in front of the finite verb:
- Studentica ne voli učiti hrvatski ujutro.
- The (female) student doesn’t like studying Croatian in the morning.
The infinitive učiti stays unchanged; only voli takes the ne.
No, voli stays the same for he / she / it (3rd person singular).
You only change the noun (and any adjectives) for gender, not the verb form.
Examples:
- Student voli učiti hrvatski ujutro. – The (male) student likes to study Croatian in the morning.
- Studentica voli učiti hrvatski ujutro. – The (female) student likes to study Croatian in the morning.
Only student ↔ studentica changes; voli učiti hrvatski ujutro stays identical.
Učiti is pronounced approximately as:
- [OO-chee-tee]
Breaking it down:
- u – like oo in food
- č – a hard “ch”, like ch in chocolate
- i – like ee in see
- ti – again tee
Difference between č and ć:
- č – harder, longer ch sound, tongue a bit further back (as in chocolate)
- ć – softer, shorter, more like a very soft t + y sound; English doesn’t have it exactly
In učiti, the middle consonant is č (hard ch), the last consonant is t.