Learn Hardcore Croatian: Večeras ću nekoliko puta ponoviti nove riječi. - Tonight I will repeat the new words several times.

future I:
- Večeras ću ponoviti nove riječi. – neutral future
or present tense of an imperfective verb to talk about a planned future:
- Večeras ponavljam nove riječi. – “Tonight I’m (going to be) revising the new words.”

But you don’t say Večeras ponovim nove riječi as a standalone sentence for the future; the present of a perfective verb usually expresses something like “when I (have) repeated…”, typically in subordinate clauses:
Kad ponovim nove riječi, ići ću spavati. – “When I (have) repeated the new words, I’ll go to sleep.”

Does word order in this sentence have to be exactly Večeras ću nekoliko puta ponoviti nove riječi, or can I move things around?

Word order in Croatian is relatively flexible, but there are rules about clitics like ću.

The original:

Večeras ću nekoliko puta ponoviti nove riječi.

is neutral: “Tonight I will repeat the new words several times.”

Other natural variants (all correct):

Večeras ću ponoviti nove riječi nekoliko puta.
(Slightly more natural in everyday speech; almost the same meaning.)
Nekoliko puta ću večeras ponoviti nove riječi.
(More emphasis on nekoliko puta – the number of repetitions.)
Nove riječi ću večeras nekoliko puta ponoviti.
(Emphasis on nove riječi, as opposed to some other words.)

What you can’t do is put ću first:

✗ Ću večeras nekoliko puta ponoviti nove riječi. – ungrammatical.

Reason: ću is a clitic and normally has to appear in the second position in the sentence or clause (after the first stressed word or phrase), not at the very beginning.

What exactly is nekoliko puta grammatically, and why is puta in that form?

nekoliko puta literally means “several times”.

Breakdown:

nekoliko – “several, a few”
put(a) – a noun meaning “time, occasion” in this context

Grammatically:

nekoliko is followed by the genitive case.
put (“time, occasion”) has the genitive form puta.
So nekoliko puta = “several times/occasions”.

This put(a) is not “road/way” (also put), but the homonymous noun meaning “time/occasion”. You mostly meet it in fixed expressions like jedanput / jedanput, više puta, svaki put, nekoliko puta, nikad nijedanput etc.

So you can remember nekoliko puta as a fixed adverbial phrase “several times”, built with nekoliko + genitive.

Is there any difference between nekoliko puta, par puta, and više puta?

They all translate roughly as “x times”, but the nuance differs:

nekoliko puta – “several times”
Neutral, maybe 3–5 times; a small, indefinite number.
par puta – literally “a pair of times”
In practice: “a couple of times”, usually 2–3.
More colloquial than nekoliko puta.
više puta – “many times / more than once”
Stresses that it wasn’t just once, but multiple times (could be a lot).

Compare:

Večeras ću nekoliko puta ponoviti nove riječi.
– I’ll repeat them a few times.
Večeras ću par puta ponoviti nove riječi.
– I’ll repeat them a couple of times (sounds a bit more casual).
Večeras ću više puta ponoviti nove riječi.
– I’ll repeat them several/many times (focus on “more than once”).

Why do we say nove riječi here, and what case, gender, and number is that?

nove riječi is the direct object of the verb ponoviti, so it must be in the accusative case.

Grammatically:

riječ – “word”
- gender: feminine
- singular: riječ
- plural (nominative & accusative): riječi
nov – “new”
- feminine singular: nova riječ – “a new word”
- feminine plural (nominative & accusative): nove riječi – “new words”

So in the sentence:

Večeras ću nekoliko puta ponoviti nove riječi.

nove riječi = feminine plural accusative
It agrees in gender, number, and case with the noun it modifies (riječi).

This is why you can’t say novi riječi here: novi is masculine plural, but riječi is feminine plural, so the adjective must also be feminine plural: nove.

What’s the difference between ponoviti and ponavljati, and could I use ponavljati in this sentence?

They form an aspectual pair:

ponoviti – perfective: “to repeat (once / as a completed act)”
ponavljati – imperfective: “to be repeating, to repeat habitually/over time”

In the future:

Večeras ću nekoliko puta ponoviti nove riječi.
Focus: you will carry out several complete repetitions. The event as a whole is seen as completed.

If you use ponavljati:

Večeras ću ponavljati nove riječi.
= “Tonight I’ll be repeating / revising the new words.”
Focus: the ongoing process during the evening, not how many times.

Adding nekoliko puta to ponavljati is possible but less natural, because ponavljati already implies repetition:

Večeras ću nekoliko puta ponavljati nove riječi.
Sounds a bit redundant or stylistically heavy.

So yes, ponoviti is the more natural choice with nekoliko puta when you want “I’ll repeat them a few times (and that will be done).”
Use ponavljati when you want to stress “I’ll be working on repeating them for some time.”

What is večeras grammatically? Is it related to večer or večera, and could I say ove večeri instead?

večeras is an adverb meaning “this evening / tonight”.

It does not decline (no case endings); it’s always večeras.
It is historically related to the noun večer (“evening”), but in modern language it’s simply treated as an adverb.

Compare:

večer – “evening” (noun)
- ove večeri – “this evening” (genitive singular; literally “of this evening”)
večera – “dinner” (noun), unrelated in meaning to večeras.

You could say:

Ove večeri ću nekoliko puta ponoviti nove riječi.

but in everyday speech Večeras ću… is much more natural.
Ove večeri is more formal or used when contrasting this evening with some other evening(s).

If I don’t want to repeat nove riječi, how do I replace them with a pronoun in this sentence?

You replace nove riječi with the object pronoun ih (“them”), and because ih is a clitic, it goes into the clitic cluster after ću:

Večeras ću ih nekoliko puta ponoviti.
“Tonight I’ll repeat them several times.”

Key points:

ih = “them” (accusative plural, for both people and things)
It cannot come first: ✗ Ih ću večeras nekoliko puta ponoviti (this sounds very marked and is usually avoided).
The natural position is:
Večeras (first stressed word) + ću (auxiliary) + ih (object pronoun) + rest of the sentence.

Another acceptable variant is:

Večeras ću ih ponoviti nekoliko puta.

Both are correct; the meaning is essentially the same.

How would I say “Tonight I’ll be repeating the new words” in Croatian? Does this sentence already mean that?

Your original sentence:

Večeras ću nekoliko puta ponoviti nove riječi.

is best translated as:

“Tonight I will repeat the new words several times.”

That focuses on the number of completed repetitions.

To translate “Tonight I’ll be repeating the new words” (emphasis on the activity/process, not the count), you’d normally say:

Večeras ću ponavljati nove riječi.

This uses the imperfective verb ponavljati, which corresponds to the English progressive “will be repeating / will be revising”.

Could I also say Večeras ponavljam nove riječi without ću? What’s the difference?

Yes, you can:

Večeras ponavljam nove riječi.

This is the present tense of an imperfective verb (ponavljam) used with a future time expression (večeras). It usually implies a planned or scheduled future action, similar to English:

“Tonight I’m revising the new words.”
“Tonight I’m going to be revising the new words.”

Difference from Večeras ću nekoliko puta ponoviti nove riječi:

Večeras ću nekoliko puta ponoviti nove riječi.
– Neutral future, perfective, with a specified number of repetitions (several times, and then it’s done).
Večeras ponavljam nove riječi.
– Sounds more like a plan or arrangement for tonight, focusing on the activity, not on how many times.

Just note: you wouldn’t say Večeras ponovim nove riječi for a simple future; that form (present of a perfective verb) is mostly used in subordinate/time clauses like kad ponovim, čim ponovim, etc., not as an independent statement of future intention.