Learn Hardcore Croatian: Radionica je opuštenija nego što sam zamišljao prije prvog susreta. - The workshop is more relaxed than I imagined before the first meeting.

Croatian usually prefers single‑word comparatives (synthetic comparatives) rather than više + adjective when a regular comparative form exists.

opušten → opušteniji (masc.), opuštenija (fem.), opuštenije (neut.)
Here the subject radionica is feminine singular, so the predicate adjective is opuštenija.

You can say više opuštena, and it’s grammatically correct, but it sounds less natural and a bit heavier here. Native speakers will almost always choose opuštenija in this sentence.

Why is it nego što and not just nego or od?

There are a few comparison patterns in Croatian:

Adjective in comparative + nego + noun/pronoun
- Ona je starija nego ja. – She is older than I am.
Adjective in comparative + od + genitive
- Ona je starija od mene. – She is older than me.
Adjective in comparative + nego što + clause
- Radionica je opuštenija nego što sam zamišljao. – The workshop is more relaxed than I had imagined.

In your sentence, you are comparing the actual reality with what you imagined, i.e. with a whole clause (što sam zamišljao), not just with a noun. For that, Croatian uses nego što (or sometimes just nego + clause, especially in speech, but nego što is the standard clear form).

Using od here would be wrong because od is followed by a noun or pronoun in the genitive, not by a full clause.

What exactly is the function of što in nego što sam zamišljao?

Here što is a conjunction-like word introducing a subordinate clause of comparison, not a question word.

The structure is:

nego što
- sam zamišljao

You can think of it as roughly:

nego što [sam zamišljao] – than (what) I imagined

So:

nego = than
što = that / what (linking the comparison clause)

Croatian often uses što to introduce clauses of this type:

Bolje je nego što misliš. – It is better than you think.

Why does sam come after što, and not right before zamišljao or somewhere else?

Sam is a clitic form of the auxiliary verb biti (to be) used in the past tense (perfekt). Croatian clitics have a strong tendency to appear in second position within a clause.

In the clause:

što sam zamišljao

the first word is što, so the clitic sam must come right after it:

1st position: što
2nd position (clitic slot): sam
then the main verb: zamišljao

You cannot say:

✗ što zamišljao sam
✗ što zamišljao

Without sam, the past tense would be incomplete; zamišljao alone looks like a participle without its auxiliary.

Why is it je opuštenija (present) together with sam zamišljao (past)? Is that normal?

Yes, this mix of tenses is very natural in Croatian and matches English quite closely.

je opuštenija – present: describes how the workshop is now (or generally).
sam zamišljao – past: describes what you imagined before the first meeting.

In English you’d often say:
The workshop *is more relaxed than I had imagined before the first meeting.*

Croatian does not need a special past perfect form (had imagined). Sam zamišljao (simple past/perfect) is enough to express that your imagining happened before the current evaluation. The time relation is clear from prije prvog susreta.

Why zamišljao and not zamislio?

Both verbs are related but differ in aspect and nuance:

zamišljati – imperfective: to imagine (ongoing, repeated, or general activity)
zamisliti – perfective: to imagine (as a single completed act)

Sam zamišljao suggests:

you were thinking about it over some time,
you had a general image or expectation in your mind before the first meeting.

Sam zamislio would sound more like:

I imagined it (once, at a particular moment) before the first meeting.

Both are possible, but zamišljao fits well with the idea of pre‑formed expectations you had leading up to the workshop.

Why is it zamišljao and not zamišljala? What if the speaker is female?

The form zamišljao is the masculine singular past participle. In Croatian, the gender of the speaker is reflected in many past-tense forms when the subject is ja (I) and is not explicitly written.

A male speaker:
nego što sam zamišljao
A female speaker:
nego što sam zamišljala

Everything else in the sentence stays the same. So female speakers should use zamišljala, male speakers zamišljao.

Why is it prije prvog susreta and not prije prvi susret?

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

susret – nominative singular (meeting, encounter)
susreta – genitive singular
prvi – nominative masculine singular
prvog – genitive masculine singular

So you must say:

prije susreta – before the meeting
prije prvog susreta – before the first meeting

Both the adjective prvog and the noun susreta are in the genitive singular masculine, agreeing with each other and governed by prije.

Can prije prvog susreta be placed somewhere else in the sentence?

Yes. Croatian word order is relatively flexible, especially for adverbial phrases of time like prije prvog susreta. All of these are possible and grammatical:

Radionica je opuštenija nego što sam zamišljao prije prvog susreta.
Radionica je opuštenija nego što sam prije prvog susreta zamišljao.
Prije prvog susreta, radionica je opuštenija nego što sam zamišljao. – sounds odd logically, because “before the first meeting, the workshop is…” mixes times. Usually you’d use past: bila je.

In practice, the original version is the most natural, because prije prvog susreta clearly belongs to sam zamišljao (the time of your imagining), not to je opuštenija. So native speakers will usually keep it close to zamišljao.

Why is there no ja for “I” in što sam zamišljao?

In Croatian, subject pronouns (like ja, ti, on, ona…) are often omitted because the verb form already shows person and number.

sam zamišljao tells you:
- sam – I (1st person singular auxiliary)
- zamišljao – masculine singular participle

So ja would be redundant. You can say:

nego što sam ja zamišljao

but this usually adds contrast or emphasis on I:

…than I had imagined (as opposed to someone else).

Without special emphasis, native speakers just omit ja.

Could we say Radionica je bila opuštenija nego što sam zamišljao instead of je opuštenija? What is the difference?

Both are grammatically correct, but they suggest slightly different viewpoints:

Radionica je opuštenija nego što sam zamišljao.
- Present tense je – you’re talking about the workshop now / in general (as an ongoing reality).
- Similar to English: The workshop is more relaxed than I had imagined.
Radionica je bila opuštenija nego što sam zamišljao.
- Past tense je bila – you’re talking about a completed event in the past.
- Similar to English: The workshop was more relaxed than I had imagined.

Which one you choose depends on whether you’re describing:

an ongoing, current workshop (or a general description) → je opuštenija
a finished workshop you attended before → je bila opuštenija

Could I replace zamišljao with očekivao? Is there a difference?

Yes, you can say:

Radionica je opuštenija nego što sam očekivao prije prvog susreta.

The grammar stays the same. The nuance changes slightly:

zamišljao – focuses on the mental image you formed, what you pictured it would be like.
očekivao – focuses on your expectations, what you thought was likely or probable.

In many contexts, these overlap, and both sound natural. Native speakers might choose očekivao if they want to stress expectations, and zamišljao if they want to stress imagination / mental picture.