Learn Hardcore Croatian: Brak može biti teži nego što zamišljamo dok smo još mladi. - Marriage can be harder than we imagine while we are still young.

Brak može biti teži… = Marriage *can be harder…* (it’s possible; not always, but it can happen)
Brak je teži… = Marriage *is harder…* (presents it as a general fact, more categorical)

Grammatically:

može = 3rd person singular of moći (can, to be able to).
It’s followed by the infinitive biti (to be), just like English can be.

So the sentence uses može biti to talk about possibility or potential, not a fixed fact.

What exactly does brak mean? Is it “marriage” or “wedding”?

Brak means marriage as a state/institution, not the wedding ceremony.

brak = marriage (the long-term relationship, the legal/social state)
vjenčanje = wedding (the ceremony/event)

Examples:

Ušao je u brak vrlo mlad. – He entered into marriage very young.
Njihovo vjenčanje je bilo u rujnu. – Their wedding was in September.

Also:

brak is masculine, singular here, in the nominative case as the subject of the sentence.

Why is teži used instead of something like više težak for “harder”?

Croatian normally forms comparatives with a special comparative form, not with više + adjective (more + adj) the way English often does.

Base adjective: težak (hard, heavy)
Comparative: teži (harder, heavier)

So:

brak je težak – marriage is hard
brak je teži – marriage is harder

You do not say:

✗ više težak (this sounds wrong to native speakers)

Many common adjectives have irregular or shortened comparative forms:

dobar → bolji (good → better)
loš → gori (bad → worse)
velik → veći (big → bigger)
težak → teži (hard → harder)

Does teži here mean “heavier” or “harder/more difficult”?

In this context it means “harder / more difficult,” not literally “heavier.”

Težak can mean:

physically heavy: teška torba – a heavy bag
difficult, hard: težak ispit – a hard/difficult exam

Similarly, teži can be:

heavier: Ovaj kofer je teži. – This suitcase is heavier.
harder/more difficult: Brak može biti teži nego što zamišljamo. – Marriage can be harder than we imagine.

Here it’s clearly about difficulty, not physical weight.

Why do we say nego što zamišljamo instead of just nego zamišljamo or od onoga što zamišljamo?

In comparisons, Croatian often uses nego što + clause to mean “than what …”:

teži nego što zamišljamo
= harder than (what) we imagine

You have a few patterns:

Adjective (comparative) + nego što + full clause
- teži nego što zamišljamo – harder than we imagine
- bolje nego što misliš – better than you think
Adjective (comparative) + nego + noun/pronoun
- stariji sam nego ti – I’m older than you
- veći je nego kuća – it’s bigger than the house
Adjective (comparative) + od + genitive (also common)
- veći je od kuće – he’s bigger than the house
- stariji sam od tebe – I’m older than you

In your sentence, because the comparison is with a whole idea (“what we imagine”), the natural structure is nego što zamišljamo, not just nego zamišljamo.

What role does što play in nego što zamišljamo? Is it the same as “what”?

Yes, here što is similar to “what” in English in a comparison clause:

nego što zamišljamo
literally: “than what we imagine”

So the structure is:

nego – than
što – what / that (a kind of relative word introducing the clause)
zamišljamo – we imagine

You could translate the whole phrase as:

harder than we imagine
harder than what we imagine

In English we normally drop the explicit “what,” but Croatian keeps što.

Why is it just zamišljamo and not mi zamišljamo for “we imagine”?

Croatian is a pro-drop language: the subject pronoun is usually omitted because the verb ending already shows the person and number.

zamišljamo = we imagine
(1st person plural ending -mo)

You only say mi zamišljamo when you want to emphasize “we”:

Mi zamišljamo, a oni ne. – We imagine it, but they don’t.

In neutral, everyday sentences like yours, using just zamišljamo is normal and more natural.

Why is zamišljamo in the present tense, if the sentence talks about marriage in the future?

The present tense in Croatian (like in English) is often used for general truths, habits, and typical situations, not just for actions happening right now.

Here:

zamišljamo = we (typically) imagine (how marriage will be)
Brak može biti teži nego što zamišljamo dok smo još mladi.
= Marriage can be harder than we (tend to) imagine while we’re still young.

So:

present tense expresses a general way we think about marriage at that stage of life.
It doesn’t mean “we are imagining right this second”; it’s more like “what we usually imagine.”

What’s the difference between zamišljamo and zamislimo?

They come from two different aspects of the verb:

zamišljati (imperfective) → zamišljamo
- ongoing, repeated, habitual action
- “to imagine (in general), to be imagining”
zamisliti (perfective) → zamislimo
- single, completed act
- “to (manage to) imagine, to picture (once)”

In your sentence:

zamišljamo is correct because it refers to a general habit (how we usually imagine marriage when we’re young), not one specific act of imagining.

Using zamislimo would sound more like:

“harder than we (once) imagine / will imagine (on one occasion),” which is not the idea here.

What does dok mean in dok smo još mladi, and how is it different from kad?

Dok here means “while”.

dok smo još mladi = while we’re still young

Roughly:

dok = while, as long as (focus on duration / overlap)
kad = when (more neutral, often point in time)

Compare:

Dok sam bio mlad, puno sam putovao. – While I was young, I travelled a lot.
Kad sam bio mlad, puno sam putovao. – When I was young, I travelled a lot. (also OK, but a bit more like “in the period when…”)

In your sentence, dok works well because it emphasizes the period of being young overlapping with the time when we imagine marriage.

Why is it dok smo još mladi and not dok smo još mlado or something singular?

The adjective mladi agrees with the implied subject “we” (mi):

smo = 1st person plural (we are)
So the adjective must also be masculine plural: mladi

Agreement pattern:

ja sam mlad / mlada – I (m/f) am young
ti si mlad / mlada – you (sg, m/f) are young
mi smo mladi – we are young
one su mlade – they (fem.) are young

For mixed or unspecified gender groups, Croatian normally uses masculine plural:

mi smo mladi = we (men only / mixed group / people in general) are young

So mlado (neuter singular) would be grammatically wrong here.

Where does još fit in, and could we move it somewhere else in dok smo još mladi?

Još here means “still”:

dok smo još mladi = while we’re still young

Typical and most natural placement:

još comes before the adjective:
- još mladi – still young
- još umoran – still tired

You’ll also often see it before the verb in other contexts:

još radim – I still work / I’m still working

In dok smo još mladi, other word orders (like dok još smo mladi or dok smo mladi još) sound unnatural or wrong.
The idiomatic order here is exactly: dok smo još mladi.