Learn Hardcore Croatian: Njen brat me uvijek hrabri prije ispita iz hrvatskog jezika. - Her brother always encourages me before the Croatian exam.

Njen and njezin are both correct and mean the same thing; njezin is often a bit more formal or “full”, while njen is shorter and very common in everyday speech. They decline like adjectives (njen/njezin, njena/njezina, njeno/njezino, etc.), agreeing with the gender, number and case of the noun (here: brat is masculine singular nominative, so njen/njezin is too).

Why is it njen brat and not njegov brat?

Because njen means her, while njegov means his.

njen brat = her brother (possessor is female – ona)
njegov brat = his brother (possessor is male or neuter – on/ono)

The noun brat itself is masculine, but that doesn’t matter for choosing njen vs njegov: what matters is the gender of the owner, not the gender of the thing owned.

Why is me in the middle of the sentence, and where can it go?

Me is an unstressed (clitic) object pronoun meaning me. Croatian clitics normally try to stand in the second position in the clause.

In Njen brat me uvijek hrabri:

The first “chunk” of the clause is Njen brat.
The clitic me comes right after that chunk, which is the usual and safest position.

Other possible word orders:

Uvijek me njen brat hrabri. (Starting the sentence with uvijek, then clitic me.)
Njen me brat uvijek hrabri. (Possible, but sounds more stylized/emphatic.)

As a learner, the most natural and safe pattern is:

Put the subject (or first phrase) first,
Then put clitic pronouns like me right after it.

What form of the verb is hrabri, and what is the infinitive?

Hrabri is 3rd person singular, present tense of the verb hrabriti (to encourage, to give courage).

The present tense of hrabriti looks like this:

(ja) hrabrim – I encourage
(ti) hrabriš – you encourage (sg)
(on/ona/ono) hrabri – he/she/it encourages
(mi) hrabrimo – we encourage
(vi) hrabrite – you encourage (pl/polite)
(oni/one/ona) hrabre – they encourage

So in the sentence, njen brat = on (he), so we use hrabri.

Does hrabriti mean the same as ohrabriti / ohrabrivati?

They are closely related but not identical:

hrabriti – imperfective, to encourage, to give courage (can be ongoing or habitual).
ohrabriti – perfective, to encourage (usually a single, completed act: to encourage someone (once), to give someone courage).
ohrabrivati – imperfective of ohrabriti, meaning to be encouraging, to encourage repeatedly/over time.

In everyday speech, ohrabriti / ohrabrivati are very common. Hrabriti is correct and understood, and hrabri me is perfectly fine; it may sound a bit simpler or slightly more bookish compared with ohrabruje me.

What does uvijek mean, and where can it appear in the sentence?

Uvijek means always.

Typical positions:

Njen brat me uvijek hrabri. – very natural.
Njen brat me hrabri uvijek. – possible, puts some extra emphasis on always.
Uvijek me njen brat hrabri. – begins the sentence with emphasis on always.

You usually put uvijek:

Just before the verb (uvijek hrabri), or
Close to the verb + object (me uvijek hrabri).

The version in your sentence (me uvijek hrabri) is one of the most common patterns.

Why is it prije ispita and not prije ispit?

Because the preposition prije (before) in Croatian always takes the genitive case.

Nominative (dictionary form): ispit (an exam)
Genitive singular: ispita

So you must say:

prije ispita – before the exam / before an exam

Other examples with prije + genitive:

prije ručka – before lunch
prije škole – before school
prije posla – before work

Using nominative (prije ispit) would be ungrammatical.

Is ispita singular or plural here, and how can it mean “before exams”?

Formally, ispita here is genitive, and for this noun the genitive singular and genitive plural are identical:

Genitive singular: ispita – of an exam
Genitive plural: ispita – of exams

You understand singular vs plural from context. In a sentence like:

Njen brat me uvijek hrabri prije ispita iz hrvatskog jezika.

it can mean:

“before the Croatian exam” (a specific one), or
“before Croatian exams” in general (habitually).

Croatian often uses the singular in a generic/habitual sense (“before an exam” = “whenever there is an exam”), so it naturally covers the English idea “before exams”. If you want to be clearer, you can say:

prije svakog ispita – before every exam
prije svih ispita – before all exams.

Why is it iz hrvatskog jezika and not something like za hrvatski jezik?

For school subjects, Croatian normally uses ispit iz + genitive:

ispit iz hrvatskog (jezika) – exam in Croatian (language)
ispit iz matematike – exam in mathematics
ispit iz povijesti – exam in history

The preposition iz with genitive often means “out of/from”, but in this school context it corresponds to English “in (a subject)” or “on (a subject)”.

za
- accusative would express purpose (“for” something), e.g. knjiga za hrvatski jezik – a book for Croatian (class).
od often means “from” in the sense of origin or source (from a person, from somewhere), not “in a subject”.

So ispit iz hrvatskog jezika is the fixed, idiomatic pattern for “Croatian exam” / “exam in Croatian (language)”.

Why does hrvatski jezik change to hrvatskog jezika after iz?

Because iz requires the genitive case, and both the adjective and the noun must agree in case, number, and gender.

Nominative: hrvatski jezik – Croatian language
- hrvatski (masculine singular nominative)
- jezik (masculine singular nominative)
Genitive (after iz): iz hrvatskog jezika
- hrvatskog (masculine singular genitive)
- jezika (masculine singular genitive)

So the whole phrase shifts from nominative to genitive because of iz, and the adjective hrvatski changes form along with the noun jezik.

Can we say just iz hrvatskog instead of iz hrvatskog jezika?

Yes. In everyday speech, people very often shorten it to:

ispit iz hrvatskog – exam in Croatian

The noun jezik (language) is understood from context (school subjects). Grammatically nothing changes: hrvatskog is still masculine singular genitive, agreeing with an implied jezika.

Both:

iz hrvatskog jezika and
iz hrvatskog

are correct; the first is a bit more explicit or formal.

Could the sentence word order be different, for example Njen brat uvijek me hrabri or Uvijek me njen brat hrabri?

Some changes are more natural than others:

Njen brat me uvijek hrabri prije ispita…
– Neutral, very natural; recommended.
Uvijek me njen brat hrabri prije ispita…
– Also natural; starting with Uvijek puts extra emphasis on “always”.
Njen brat uvijek me hrabri prije ispita…
– Possible in real speech, but less standard, because the clitic me is no longer in the early “second position” slot. As a learner, it’s safer to avoid this pattern.

General advice: keep me right after the first main phrase in the clause (Njen brat me… or Uvijek me…) to sound natural and correct.

How would the sentence change if it was her sister instead of her brother?

You mainly change the noun brat and its possessive adjective:

Njen brat me uvijek hrabri… – Her brother always encourages me…
Njena sestra me uvijek hrabri… – Her sister always encourages me…

Here:

sestra is feminine, so the possessive becomes njena (her for a feminine noun).
The verb hrabri stays the same: the subject is still 3rd person singular (he/she).

You could also use the longer form njezina sestra, just like njezin brat.

How do you pronounce the hr in hrabri and hrvatskog?

For English speakers, two things matter: h and the rolled r.

h in Croatian is like the ch in Scottish loch or German Bach (a voiceless throaty sound).
r is rolled or tapped (like a Spanish r, not the English approximant).

In hrabri:

Pronounce it roughly as HRAH-bri, with stress on the first syllable (HRAH).
In hrvatskog:
Break it as HR-vat-skog, again stress on the first syllable (HR).
Try to keep a short but clear h before the rolled r: [hr].

It may feel awkward at first, but with practice the hr cluster becomes natural.