Learn Hardcore Croatian: Kad je plaća mala, svaki dodatni trošak nas brine. - When the salary is small, every additional expense worries us.

Kad is just a shorter, slightly more colloquial form. Kada can sound a bit more formal or careful, but in everyday speech people use kad all the time. Grammatically, there is no difference in this sentence.

Why is the word order Kad je plaća mala and not Kad plaća je mala?

In Croatian, the short form of biti (to be) – je – is a clitic. Clitics tend to go in the second position in a clause.

The clause is:

Kad je plaća mala
- Kad – when
- je – is (clitic)
- plaća – salary (subject)
- mala – small/low (predicate adjective)

You cannot normally say:

❌ Kad plaća je mala

because then je would no longer be in that preferred second position. So Kad je plaća mala follows Croatian clitic rules and sounds natural.

Why is it plaća and not something like plaću or plaće?

Plaća is the subject of the clause, so it is in the nominative singular:

Base form (nominative singular): plaća – salary
Verb: je – is
Predicate adjective: mala – small/low

The basic pattern is:

Plaća je mala. – The salary is low.

When you embed this in the time clause, it stays the same:

Kad je plaća mala…

Forms like plaću or plaće are other cases (accusative, genitive, etc.) or plural, which are not needed here because we are simply saying “the salary is low” (subject + je + adjective).

Why is the adjective mala and not mali or malo?

Adjectives in Croatian agree with the noun in:

Gender
Number
Case

Here:

plaća – feminine, singular, nominative
So the adjective must also be feminine singular nominative: mala

Other forms:

mali – masculine singular nominative
malo – neuter singular nominative

Since plaća is feminine, mala is the correct form.

Why is there a comma before svaki dodatni trošak nas brine?

The sentence consists of two clauses:

Kad je plaća mala – a dependent (subordinate) time clause
svaki dodatni trošak nas brine – the main clause

In Croatian, when a subordinate clause (introduced by kad, ako, iako, dok, etc.) comes before the main clause, you normally put a comma between them:

Kad je plaća mala, svaki dodatni trošak nas brine.

If you reverse the order, you typically drop the comma:

Svaki dodatni trošak nas brine kad je plaća mala.

Why svaki dodatni trošak and not something like sve dodatne troškove?

Svaki means “every / each” and it is followed by a singular noun:

svaki dodatni trošak – every additional expense (literally “each additional expense”)

If you used sve dodatne troškove, that would be:

sve dodatne troškove – all additional expenses (accusative plural)

That would change both the grammar and the nuance. The original sentence states a general rule about each single extra expense:

Svaki dodatni trošak nas brine. – Every additional expense worries us.

So the singular svaki + singular trošak is correct and idiomatic here.

Why is trošak in the singular when English might say “extra expenses”?

With svaki (every / each), Croatian uses a singular noun:

svaki trošak – every expense
svaki dan – every day
svaka osoba – every person

Even though the idea in English often feels plural (“extra expenses”), Croatian expresses the same idea as a universal statement about each individual item, so it stays singular:

svaki dodatni trošak – every additional expense

Why do we use nas and not mi?

Mi and nas are different cases of the same pronoun:

mi – “we” (nominative, used for the subject)
nas – “us” (accusative or genitive, used for the object)

In the main clause:

svaki dodatni trošak – subject (what is doing the action)
nas – direct object (who is affected)
brine – verb

So the pattern is:

X brine nas. – X worries us.

If you said mi, you would be saying “we” in subject position, which doesn’t fit this sentence structure.

Can the position of nas change? For example, can I say Svaki nas dodatni trošak brine or Svaki dodatni trošak brine nas?

Yes, Croatian allows several word orders, with slightly different emphasis.

All of these are possible:

Svaki dodatni trošak nas brine.
– Neutral, common word order (as in your sentence).
Svaki nas dodatni trošak brine.
– nas is in the clitic-like “second position” inside the clause. This is very natural and quite common in speech and writing.
Svaki dodatni trošak brine nas.
– Puts some extra emphasis on nas (“it’s us that every extra expense worries”).

In your original full sentence:

Kad je plaća mala, svaki nas dodatni trošak brine.
is probably the most typical “clitic” word order,
but Kad je plaća mala, svaki dodatni trošak nas brine.
is also acceptable and understood, with a slightly stronger stress on nas at the end.

What is the difference between brine and brine se, and could we also say zabrinjava?

The verb brinuti has two main uses:

brinuti (nekoga) – to worry someone, to cause worry
- trošak nas brine – the expense worries us
brinuti se – to worry (oneself), to be concerned
- brinemo se zbog troškova – we worry because of the expenses
- brinem se – I worry / I’m worried

So in your sentence, brine is the correct transitive form (“worries us”).

You could also use zabrinjavati (imperfective) or zabrinuti (perfective) with a similar meaning:

Svaki dodatni trošak nas zabrinjava. – Every additional expense worries us / makes us worried.

This sounds slightly more formal or stronger than simple brine, but is very natural.

Why is the present tense (je, brine) used even though this sounds like a general rule?

In Croatian, the present tense is regularly used for:

General truths
Habits
Typical situations

So:

Kad je plaća mala, svaki dodatni trošak nas brine.
literally: When the salary is low, every additional expense worries us.

This present tense corresponds to English “When the salary is low, every extra expense worries us” or even “Whenever the salary is low, any extra expense worries us.” There is no need for any special tense; ordinary present works for general statements.