Learn Hardcore Croatian: Ljeti su turisti svugdje, ali zimi ih skoro nigdje nema. - In summer tourists are everywhere, but in winter there are almost none anywhere.

Ljeti is an adverb meaning “in (the) summer, during summer (in general)”. It usually describes something that happens regularly or typically in the summer:

Ljeti je vruće. – It is hot in (the) summer.
Ljeti su turisti svugdje. – In summer, tourists are everywhere.

You can say u ljeto, but it is less common and usually feels more specific, often tied to a particular summer:

U ljeto 1991. – In the summer of 1991.

For general, habitual statements, Croatian speakers strongly prefer ljeti over u ljeto.

Why is zimi used instead of u zimu or u zimi?

Zimi is the standard adverb meaning “in (the) winter, during winter”, parallel to ljeti:

Zimi je hladno. – In winter it is cold.
…ali zimi ih skoro nigdje nema. – …but in winter you can hardly find them anywhere.

Forms like u zimu or u zimi are either non‑standard or sound strange/archaic in modern Croatian. For ordinary speech and writing, always use zimi for “in winter” in the general sense.

Why is the word order Ljeti su turisti svugdje and not Ljeti turisti su svugdje?

Two things are going on:

Clitic position (verb su):
Su (are) is a clitic and in Croatian clitics like to stand in second position in the clause, after the first stressed word or phrase.
- First stressed element here is Ljeti, so the clitic goes right after it:
  Ljeti su turisti svugdje.
Ljeti turisti su svugdje puts su in third position (Ljeti – turisti – su) and sounds wrong.
Flexible word order for emphasis:
Croatian allows other orders as long as clitic rules are respected, for example:
- Turisti su ljeti svugdje. – more neutral, subject first.
- Ljeti su svugdje turisti. – slightly more focus on svugdje.

But Ljeti su turisti svugdje is a natural way to start with the time (Ljeti) and then state what happens.

Could you leave out su and just say Ljeti turisti svugdje like in some other Slavic languages?

No. In standard Croatian, the present tense of biti (to be) must be expressed:

Ljeti su turisti svugdje. – correct
Ljeti turisti svugdje. – incorrect / ungrammatical

Unlike Russian or Ukrainian, Croatian does not normally drop the present tense form of biti in sentences like “X is Y” or “X are Y”.

What is the difference between svugdje, svuda, and posvuda?

All three basically mean “everywhere” and are often interchangeable:

svugdje
svuda
posvuda

In this sentence, you could say:

Ljeti su turisti svugdje.
Ljeti su turisti svuda.
Ljeti su turisti posvuda.

Nuances:

svugdje and svuda are the most common, everyday choices.
posvuda can sometimes sound a bit more expressive (“all over the place”), but in many contexts it’s just a stylistic variation.

In zimi ih skoro nigdje nema, what does ih mean and why is it needed?

Ih is the unstressed (clitic) pronoun meaning “them” (3rd person plural, accusative/genitive).

Here it refers back to turisti:

Ljeti su turisti svugdje
– In summer, tourists are everywhere
ali zimi ih skoro nigdje nema
– but in winter, there are almost none of them anywhere.

Why it’s needed:

Nema by itself just means “there isn’t / there aren’t / there is none”, but doesn’t say of what.
Ih nema = “there are none (of them)”, clearly referring to the previously mentioned tourists.

Without ih, zimi skoro nigdje nema would mean something like “in winter there is almost nothing anywhere”, which is vague and not clearly tied to tourists.

Why is it ih and not njih?

Croatian has two series of 3rd person plural pronouns:

ih – unstressed clitic form (short)
njih – stressed full form (long)

You normally use ih inside the sentence, without emphasis, in the clitic “second position”:

Zimi ih skoro nigdje nema. – neutral, standard.

You use njih when you want emphasis or when the pronoun comes after a preposition:

Bez njih zimi nema gužve. – Without them there is no crowd in winter.
Zimi skoro nigdje nema njih. – Stronger focus on them (“it’s them that you almost can’t find anywhere in winter”).

So in your neutral statement, ih is the natural choice.

Why is nema in the singular when we are talking about plural turisti?

Ima / nema in Croatian works like an impersonal existential verb (“there is / there are”). It almost always appears in 3rd person singular, regardless of whether what follows is grammatically singular or plural:

Ima turista. – There are tourists.
Nema turista. – There are no tourists.
Ima ljudi. – There are people.
Nema ljudi. – There are no people.

So:

…zimi ih skoro nigdje nema.
Literally: in winter them almost nowhere there‑is‑not
→ “you can hardly find them anywhere in winter.”

The singular nema is normal here; it does not agree in number with turisti.

Is skoro nigdje nema a double negative, and is that correct in Croatian?

Yes, it is a double negative, and in Croatian that is not only correct, it is required.

Pattern in Croatian:

nikad ne idem – I never go
nitko ne dolazi – nobody comes
ništa ne razumijem – I understand nothing
nigdje nema turista – there are tourists nowhere / there are no tourists anywhere

So:

nigdje nema = “there is nowhere (any)” → “there is nowhere any / there is none anywhere”
With skoro: skoro nigdje nema = “there is almost nowhere (any)” → “you can hardly find any anywhere”

You must use the negative adverb (nikad, nitko, ništa, nigdje) together with a negated verb (ne idem, ne dolazi, ne razumijem, nema). Saying something like nigdje ima turista would be ungrammatical.

Why is the pronoun ih placed after zimi? Could we move it?

Again, because ih is a clitic, and clitics like ih, ga, je, se, su, će normally go in second position in the clause.

In the second half of the sentence, the first stressed element is zimi, so the clitic goes right after it:

zimi ih skoro nigdje nema – correct, very natural.

Some other variants:

Ih zimi skoro nigdje nema. – possible in speech for emphasis on ih, but less neutral.
Zimi skoro ih nigdje nema. – sounds awkward; clitic prefers to be directly after zimi.
Zimi skoro nigdje nema ih. – ungrammatical / very unnatural; clitics don’t like to be sentence‑final.

So the standard, neutral position in this sentence is exactly what you see: Zimi ih skoro nigdje nema.

What does skoro mean here, and could we use gotovo instead?

Skoro means “almost, nearly”:

skoro nigdje – almost nowhere
skoro nikad – almost never

In this sentence:

zimi ih skoro nigdje nema = “in winter there are almost none of them anywhere.”

You can usually replace skoro with gotovo without changing the meaning:

Zimi ih gotovo nigdje nema.

Both are fine here. Skoro is very common and slightly more colloquial; gotovo can sound a touch more formal, but in everyday usage they overlap a lot.

What case is turisti in, and why?

Turisti here is in the nominative plural.

In the first clause:

Ljeti su turisti svugdje.

The basic structure is:

turisti – subject (who?)
su – verb (are)
svugdje – adverb (where?)

Subjects in Croatian are in the nominative, so turisti must be nominative plural (singular would be turist).