Sastanak će trajati pet minuta.

The meeting will last five minutes.

Breakdown of Sastanak će trajati pet minuta.

• htjeti: will
• minuta: minute
• sastanak: meeting
• pet: five
• trajati: to last

Questions & Answers about Sastanak će trajati pet minuta.

Why is there no word for “the” in front of sastanak?

Croatian does not use articles like “the” or “a/an” at all.

• sastanak on its own can mean “a meeting” or “the meeting”.
• Whether it is definite or not is understood from context, not from a separate word.

So Sastanak će trajati pet minuta. can be translated as “The meeting will last five minutes.”, but literally it’s just “Meeting will last five minutes.”

What grammatical role and form does sastanak have here?

sastanak is:

• a noun, meaning “meeting”
• masculine, singular
• in the nominative case
• the subject of the sentence (the thing that will last)

You could mark it like this:
Sastanak (NOM, masc. sg., subject) će trajati pet minuta.

What exactly does će mean, and why does it come after sastanak?

će is the short (clitic) future tense form of the verb htjeti (“to want”), used purely as a future auxiliary. In this function it doesn’t mean “want” anymore; it just forms the future:

• on će trajati ≈ “it will last”

About its position:

• Croatian clitics (short, unstressed forms like ću, ćeš, će, sam, si, mi, ti etc.) usually go in second position in the clause.
• The first position in this sentence is Sastanak.
• Therefore će naturally comes next: Sastanak će…

That’s why it isn’t Sastanak trajati će… in standard Croatian; the clitic wants to be as close as possible to the start of the clause.

How is the future tense formed in Croatian, and are there other correct ways to say this?

The normal Future I (simple future) in Croatian is:

[short form of htjeti] + [infinitive]

For this sentence:

• će – 3rd person singular of htjeti (as an auxiliary)
• trajati – infinitive of “to last”

So: Sastanak će trajati.

You can also move the verb in front of the auxiliary. Then the infinitive usually loses the final -i:

• Trajat će sastanak. – also “The meeting will last.”

Both are grammatically correct. The differences:

• Sastanak će trajati (pet minuta). – most neutral, very common.
• Trajat će sastanak (pet minuta). – also correct; slightly more emphasis on the verb/duration, or used when continuing from previous context.

Forms like ✗ Trajati će sastanak (full infinitive + auxiliary after it) are considered non‑standard in Croatian.

Why do we say će trajati and not conjugate trajati like in English “will last”?

Croatian does not form the future with a special one-word verb form the way English does. Instead, it uses:

• a fixed auxiliary (ću, ćeš, će, ćemo, ćete, će)
• plus the infinitive of the main verb

So:

• Present: Sastanak traje pet minuta. – “The meeting lasts / is lasting five minutes.”
• Future: Sastanak će trajati pet minuta. – “The meeting will last five minutes.”

In the future, trajati stays in the infinitive; it doesn’t get a special future ending.

Is trajati imperfective or perfective, and does that matter here?

trajati is an imperfective verb.

Imperfective verbs:

• focus on the process or duration
• answer “How long?”, “What was going on?”

This is exactly what we need for expressing how long the meeting will last.

A related perfective verb would be potrajati (“to last a (while), to continue for some time”), but if you said:

• Sastanak će potrajati.

that suggests “the meeting will drag on / will last (for some time)” without a precise duration, or with a nuance that it may last longer than expected.

For a neutral, exact duration with a number, trajati (imperfective) is the normal choice.

Why is it pet minuta and not pet minute?

This is a key pattern with Croatian numbers:

• After 2, 3, 4 (dva, tri, četiri), nouns are usually in genitive singular.
  
  • dvije minute, tri minute, četiri minute
• After 5 and higher (pet, šest, sedam, …), nouns are in genitive plural.

Here we have pet (5), so minuta must be in genitive plural:

• pet minuta (GEN pl) – “five minutes”

For this noun:

• minute – nominative plural
• minuta – genitive plural

That’s why ✗ pet minute is incorrect; the correct form is pet minuta.

What case is minuta in here, and what is its function?

In pet minuta, the noun minuta is in the:

• genitive plural case

This is required:

1. By the number pet (“five”) – numbers from 5 up govern the genitive plural.
2. By the structure expressing a measure of time/duration.

As a whole, pet minuta functions as an adverbial of time/duration (answering “For how long?”):

• Sastanak će trajati [pet minuta]. – “The meeting will last [five minutes].”

Can I change the word order, like Sastanak će pet minuta trajati or Pet minuta će trajati sastanak?

Yes, Croatian allows relatively flexible word order, but changes often add emphasis or affect naturalness.

1. Sastanak će trajati pet minuta.

   • Most neutral and common word order.

2. Sastanak će pet minuta trajati.

   • Grammatical.
   • Slight extra emphasis on pet minuta (the exact duration), often used if you are contrasting or stressing that time.

3. Pet minuta će trajati sastanak.

   • Also grammatical.
   • Strong emphasis on pet minuta (“It’s five minutes that the meeting will last”), a bit more stylistic or emphatic.
   • In everyday speech it can sound slightly marked or rhetorical, but you will hear similar structures.

All three are possible; for a learner, Sastanak će trajati pet minuta. is the safest, most natural choice.

How would I express the same idea in the past or present?

Using trajati in different tenses:

• Past (perfect):

  • Sastanak je trajao pet minuta. – “The meeting lasted five minutes.”
  • Note the past participle trajao agrees with sastanak (masculine singular).

• Present:

  • Sastanak traje pet minuta. – “The meeting lasts five minutes.”
    
    • Typically used for schedules or general statements (e.g. “Our meetings last five minutes.”).

Structure:

• Past: [subject] + je + [past participle] + [duration]
• Present: [subject] + [present form of trajati] + [duration]
• Future: [subject] + će + [infinitive trajati] + [duration]

How are sastanak and trajati pronounced?

Approximate pronunciation (using English-like hints):

• sastanak – roughly SAH-stah-nahk

  • Stress is on the first syllable: SA-sta-nak
  • All vowels are pure, like a in “father”.
  • Final k is a plain k, like in “skip”.

• trajati – roughly TRAH-yah-tee

  • Stress on the first syllable: TRA-ja-ti
  • j is like y in “yes”.
  • Again, all a are like a in “father”.

More precise IPA (approximate):

• sastanak – [ˈsastanak]
• trajati – [ˈtrajat̪i]

Does sastanak always mean a business “meeting”, or can it also mean an “appointment”?

sastanak generally means a meeting, especially:

• business or work meetings
• official or organized meetings
• arranged meet-ups of more than two people

It can sometimes be used where English would say “appointment,” but Croatian more often uses:

• termin – for medical, hairdresser, official appointments (“appointment slot”)
• dogovor – “arrangement, agreement” (less formal “we arranged to meet”)
• susret – “encounter, (often more informal) meeting”

So:

• Imam sastanak u 10. – I have a (business/official) meeting at 10.
• Imam termin kod doktora u 10. – I have a doctor’s appointment at 10.

How would I say “The meetings will last five minutes” in Croatian?

You make sastanak plural:

• Sastanci će trajati pet minuta.

Grammar:

• sastanci – nominative plural of sastanak (meetings)
• će – future auxiliary (3rd person plural shares the same form će)
• trajati – infinitive
• pet minuta – genitive plural expressing duration

So the pattern is the same; only the subject changes from sastanak (sg) to sastanci (pl).