Learn Hardcore Croatian: Turist iz Njemačke kaže da mu je ovaj jezik stran. - The tourist from Germany says that this language is foreign to him.

Njemačka is the basic form (Nominative, used for the subject: Germany is big – Njemačka je velika).
With iz, you must use the Genitive form:

Nominative: Njemačka
Genitive: Njemačke → iz Njemačke

The preposition od can also mean “from,” but it is mostly used with people or certain abstract nouns:

od prijatelja – from a friend
od profesora – from the professor

So:

✅ Turist iz Njemačke – A tourist from Germany
❌ Turist od Njemačke – incorrect for a country in this sense
❌ Turist Njemačka – missing the preposition and the right case

What case is “Njemačke”, and why is it used here?

Njemačke is in the Genitive singular.

In Croatian, prepositions determine the case of the noun that follows. The preposition iz always takes the Genitive:

iz grada – from the city
iz škole – from school
iz Njemačke – from Germany

So the sentence Turist iz Njemačke... uses Njemačke in the Genitive because of the preposition iz.

Why is it “mu je” and not “je mu” or “njemu je”?

Mu is a short (clitic) pronoun meaning “to him” (dative of on = he).

In Croatian, short pronouns and the auxiliary je follow a fairly fixed clitic order, and they usually appear together, near the beginning of the clause. In the sequence with a dative pronoun and je, the normal order is:

Dative pronoun (mu, ti, mi, im…)
Auxiliary je

So:

✅ da mu je ovaj jezik stran – that this language is foreign to him
❌ da je mu ovaj jezik stran – sounds wrong in standard Croatian

If you use the full pronoun njemu instead of the clitic mu, then the word order is freer:

da je njemu ovaj jezik stran
da je ovaj jezik njemu stran
njemu je ovaj jezik stran

But once you choose the short form mu, it has to follow the clitic rules, so mu je is the correct sequence.

What is the difference between “mu” and “njemu”?

Both refer to “to him” (dative of on = he), but:

mu – short/clitic form, unstressed, must obey strict clitic order
njemu – full/stressed form, can be moved for emphasis

In your sentence:

da mu je ovaj jezik stran – neutral: that this language is foreign to him
da je njemu ovaj jezik stran – emphasizes to him: that *he finds this language foreign (maybe others don’t)*

When you just want a normal, neutral sentence, mu is more typical inside a clause like this.

Is “ovaj jezik” the subject or the object? Why is it not in the Accusative?

In the clause da mu je ovaj jezik stran, the structure is:

ovaj jezik – subject (Nominative)
stran – predicative adjective describing the subject

Compare with English: this language is foreign (to him).
The Croatian structure is the same: this language (subject) is foreign.

So:

ovaj jezik is in Nominative (subject)
stran agrees with it in gender and number: masculine singular → stran

It is not the object of kaže; instead, kaže takes an entire clause as its object:

kaže [da mu je ovaj jezik stran] – he says [that this language is foreign to him]

The whole da-clause is the thing he says.

Why is it “ovaj jezik stran” and not “stran jezik”?

Croatian distinguishes between:

Attributive adjective – comes before the noun, is part of a noun phrase:
- stran jezik – a foreign language (a language that is foreign, as a general description)
Predicative adjective – comes after “to be,” describes the subject:
- jezik je stran – the language is foreign

In your sentence, stran is used predicatively:

ovaj jezik (subject) + je (is) + stran (predicate)
→ this language is foreign

If you said ovaj stran jezik, it would mean this foreign language (just naming/describing the language), not “this language is foreign (to him).”

What is the function of “da” in “kaže da mu je ovaj jezik stran”?

Da here is a subordinating conjunction, similar to English “that” in reported speech:

kaže da… – he says that…
misli da… – he thinks that…
zna da… – he knows that…

So:

kaže [da mu je ovaj jezik stran]
→ he says [that this language is foreign to him]

Just like in English, “that” can sometimes be omitted, but in Croatian da is usually kept, especially in spoken and neutral style. You wouldn’t normally drop da here.

Could I say “kaže da je ovaj jezik stran za njega” instead of “da mu je ovaj jezik stran”?

You can say:

kaže da je ovaj jezik stran za njega

It is grammatically correct and understandable. The difference is:

da mu je ovaj jezik stran – very natural and more idiomatic. Using a dative pronoun (mu) is the usual way to express “to him” in this kind of structure.
da je ovaj jezik stran za njega – emphasizes slightly more “for him / in his case”, using the preposition za + Accusative. It may sound a bit more “spelled out”, less compact.

In everyday speech, da mu je ovaj jezik stran is more typical.

Why is “Turist” capitalized? Is that because it is like a name?

Turist is capitalized here only because it is the first word in the sentence.

In Croatian, common nouns like tourist, man, woman, dog are written with a lowercase letter:

turist – a tourist
muškarac – a man
žena – a woman

It is not a proper name, so in the middle of a sentence it would be:

Vidim turista iz Njemačke. – I see a tourist from Germany.

Country names like Njemačka are proper nouns, so they are capitalized wherever they appear.

Is “turist” always masculine? What about a female tourist?

Turist is grammatically masculine. For a female tourist, Croatian usually uses:

turistica or turistkinja – both are used, depending on region and style

So you might see:

Turist iz Njemačke kaže… – A male tourist from Germany says…
Turistica iz Njemačke kaže… – A female tourist from Germany says…

The rest of the sentence could then change to match feminine agreement if needed, e.g., with adjectives or past tense forms referring to her.

Why is it “ovaj jezik” and not “taj jezik”?

Croatian has a three-way demonstrative system:

ovaj – this (near the speaker, or very “psychologically close”)
taj – that (near the listener, or already known in the conversation)
onaj – that (over there), more distant

In the sentence, ovaj jezik is naturally understood as:

this language (we’re speaking now / we are dealing with right here)

So ovaj fits well. Taj jezik would be more like “that language (you mentioned / over there in the discussion)”. It could work in a different context, but ovaj is the default if you mean this language here that I am struggling with.

What does “stran” mean exactly? Is it the same as English “strange”?

Stran in this context primarily means “foreign”, not “strange”:

stran jezik – a foreign language
strana država – a foreign country

“Strange” in the sense of “odd, weird” is usually:

čudan – strange, odd

So:

ovaj jezik mi je stran – this language is foreign to me
ovaj jezik mi je čudan – this language sounds strange/odd to me

In your sentence, stran clearly means “foreign (not my own language)”, not “weird.”