Breakdown of Danas se osjećam drukčije nego jučer.
Questions & Answers about Danas se osjećam drukčije nego jučer.
In Croatian, osjećati se is a reflexive verb meaning to feel (in oneself, emotionally / physically).
- osjećati (without se) normally takes an object and means to feel something:
- Osjećam bol. – I feel pain.
- osjećati se (with se) means to feel (a certain way):
- Osjećam se dobro. – I feel good.
In your sentence, you are describing how you feel, not what you feel, so Croatian requires the reflexive: osjećam se.
Danas osjećam drukčije nego jučer sounds incomplete or wrong to a native speaker.
osjećam = I feel
- (some object)
- Osjećam umor. – I feel tiredness.
- Osjećam ljubav. – I feel love.
osjećam se = I feel
- (adjective/adverb describing me)
- Osjećam se umorno. – I feel tired.
- Osjećam se sretno. – I feel happy.
- Danas se osjećam drukčije. – Today I feel different(ly).
So osjećam talks about what you feel; osjećam se talks about how you feel.
Se is a clitic (a short, unstressed word) and Croatian has a rule that clitics usually go in second position in the clause.
In Danas se osjećam drukčije nego jučer:
- First word: Danas
- Second position: se
- Main verb follows: osjećam
You cannot freely move se around.
❌ Danas osjećam se drukčije… – sounds wrong
✅ Danas se osjećam drukčije… – correct
✅ Osjećam se danas drukčije… – also possible, but emphasizes danas more.
Drukčije is an adverb meaning differently.
It comes from the adjective drukčiji (different):
- drukčiji (m.) / drukčija (f.) / drukčije (n.) – adjective
- To je drukčiji dan. – That is a different day.
- drukčije – adverb
- Osjećam se drukčije. – I feel differently.
So:
- Use drukčiji / -a / -e before a noun: drukčiji plan, drukčija ideja.
- Use drukčije to describe how something is done or how someone feels.
All three can often mean differently, but there are some nuances:
- drukčije – very common in speech; neutral; widely used.
- drugačije – also very common; in many contexts it can replace drukčije with no change in meaning.
- Danas se osjećam drugačije nego jučer. – also correct.
- različito – from različit (different, various). Sometimes feels a bit more formal or neutral-descriptive, less colloquial.
In your sentence:
- Danas se osjećam drukčije nego jučer.
- Danas se osjećam drugačije nego jučer.
- Danas se osjećam različito nego jučer. (understandable, but less idiomatic)
The most natural choices here are drukčije or drugačije.
Nego is the standard conjunction used after a comparative (drukčije, bolje, lošije, više, etc.) to introduce what you compare with:
- Danas se osjećam drukčije nego jučer. – Today I feel differently than yesterday.
- Danas je toplije nego jučer. – Today it’s warmer than yesterday.
Some key points:
- nego = than after a comparative: bolje nego prije, više nego jučer.
- od can also be used in some comparative constructions, especially with nouns or pronouns, but with adverbs like drukčije, nego is the natural choice here.
- kao = like / as, not than:
- Osjećam se kao jučer. – I feel like I did yesterday. (no comparison of degree, just similarity)
Jučer is an adverb of time meaning yesterday. As an adverb, it:
- does not decline,
- does not need a preposition.
So you just say:
- jučer – yesterday
- danas – today
- sutra – tomorrow
They behave like English adverbs “yesterday, today, tomorrow”, not like nouns that would need cases or prepositions.
Danas se osjećam drukčije nego jučer describes your current state right now, so Croatian uses the present tense:
- osjećam (se) – I feel / I am feeling
If you wanted to talk about how you felt yesterday, you would use the past tense:
- Jučer sam se osjećao drukčije nego danas. (male speaker)
- Jučer sam se osjećala drukčije nego danas. (female speaker)
In your sentence, you are reporting a present feeling, so osjećam se (present) is correct.
Yes, Croatian word order is fairly flexible, though it can change emphasis:
✅ Danas se osjećam drukčije nego jučer.
– neutral, very natural.✅ Osjećam se danas drukčije nego jučer.
– also correct; danas is slightly more emphasized (today, in particular, I feel different).✅ Osjećam se drukčije danas nego jučer.
– puts contrast more clearly on danas vs jučer.
What you cannot do is break clitic rules:
- ❌ Danas osjećam se drukčije… – wrong placement of se.
Both come from the same root (osjećati / osjetiti), but differ in aspect:
osjećati se – imperfective: ongoing, repeated, or general feeling.
- Danas se osjećam dobro. – Today I (am) feel(ing) good. (state)
osjetiti se – perfective: a completed act of feeling, often at a specific moment, and less common in everyday speech in this reflexive form. You’re more likely to see osjetiti with an object:
- Odjednom sam osjetio bol. – Suddenly I felt pain.
For simple “I feel… / I am feeling…”, you normally use osjećam se, not osjetim se.
Both č and ć are “ch”‑type sounds, but:
č – harder, like English ch in church.
- drukčije, jučer
ć – softer, more palatal; there is no perfect English equivalent. It’s somewhat between ch and ty in tune in some British accents.
- osjećam
Minimal pair examples:
- č: čaj (tea), čas (moment)
- ć: ćao (hi/bye), ćuk (little owl)
In careful speech, Croatians clearly distinguish them, but in some dialects the difference is less strong.
In normal sentences, danas and jučer are not capitalized in Croatian:
- Danas se osjećam drukčije nego jučer.
Croatian capitalizes:
- the first word of the sentence,
- proper names (people, countries, cities, etc.),
names of months and days of the week are not capitalized either in standard Croatian:
- ponedjeljak, utorak, siječanj, veljača (all lowercase)
So you only capitalize Danas here because it is the first word of the sentence, not because of its meaning.