Questions & Answers about On se seli u drugi stan.
Se makes the verb seli reflexive.
- seliti (nekoga/nešto) = to move someone/something (e.g. Selim stol. – I’m moving the table.)
- seliti se = to move (house), to change where you live.
Without se, On seli u drugi stan would sound like “He is moving (someone/something) to another apartment,” not “He is moving (himself).”
The infinitive is seliti se.
- seliti on its own is transitive: “to move something/someone” (you need an object).
- seliti se is reflexive: “to move (house), to move oneself to a new place to live.”
So On se seli literally means “He moves himself,” i.e. he is changing his place of residence.
Seli is the present tense of the imperfective verb seliti (se).
Imperfective in the present can mean:
- an action happening right now: On se seli u drugi stan. – He is (in the process of) moving to another apartment.
- a planned/near future: said about tomorrow or next week, often with an adverb: On se sutra seli u drugi stan. – He’s moving tomorrow.
- a habitual action (less likely here, but possible in context): “Whenever the rent goes up, he moves to another apartment.”
For a completed move in the past, Croatians usually use a perfective verb:
- On se preselio u drugi stan. – He moved to another apartment.
For a completed move in the future:
- On će se preseliti u drugi stan. – He will move to another apartment.
Seliti se (imperfective) focuses on the ongoing process; preseliti se (perfective) focuses on the completed change.
Croatian uses different cases with u depending on meaning:
- u + accusative (here: u drugi stan) = motion into something, a change of location.
- u + locative (e.g. u drugom stanu) = location in/at something, no movement.
So:
- On se seli u drugi stan. – He is moving to another apartment.
- On živi u drugom stanu. – He lives in another apartment.
It’s accusative singular:
- stan is a masculine noun; its accusative singular form is the same as nominative: stan.
- drugi (“second/other/another”) is an adjective; in the masculine accusative singular (inanimate) it also looks like drugi.
So u drugi stan = “into another apartment,” with both adjective and noun in the accusative because of the motion expressed by u.
- On seli se u drugi stan is incorrect; se is a clitic and should come in the second position in the clause, so it must follow On (or the first stressed word).
- On se seli u drugi stan is the normal order.
- On se u drugi stan seli is grammatically possible but sounds marked/emphatic, often used to emphasize u drugi stan.
The most natural, neutral version is exactly the one you have: On se seli u drugi stan.
Yes. Croatian is a pro-drop language: subject pronouns are often omitted when the meaning is clear from context or verb ending.
- On se seli u drugi stan. – He is moving to another apartment.
- Seli se u drugi stan. – Same meaning; on is understood from context.
Use On mainly for emphasis or when you need to contrast him with someone else.
Adjectives in Croatian normally come before the noun they describe:
- drugi stan – another/second apartment
- veliki stan – a big apartment
- novi stan – a new apartment
Putting adjectives after the noun is rare and usually poetic or very stylistic, so stan drugi would sound unusual in normal speech.
Drugi can mean both:
- second (in order) – the second one
- another / different (one)
So drugi stan can be “the second apartment” or “another apartment,” depending on context.
Novi stan literally means “new apartment” and focuses on it being new (newly bought/rented, or just new for you), not just different from the old one. Sometimes both can be used, but they do not always mean exactly the same thing.
- stan = an apartment / flat, a unit inside a building.
- kuća = a house, a separate building.
So u drugi stan is specifically “into another apartment.” If you want “into another house,” you would say u drugu kuću (note the feminine form drugu kuću).