Learn Hardcore Croatian: Ona svaki dan donosi ručak na posao.

svaki dan feels a bit more neutral and is extremely common.
svakog dana can sound a bit more “all the time / without exception” or slightly more formal, depending on context.

Here, you could say:

Ona svaki dan donosi ručak na posao.
Ona svakog dana donosi ručak na posao.

No real change in meaning for a learner.

Why is svaki masculine when it refers to dan?

Because dan (day) is grammatically masculine in Croatian.

dan = masculine singular noun
Adjectives and determiners must agree in gender, number, and case.

So you get:

svaki dan (every day) – masculine singular nominative
If it were feminine, you’d see svaka (e.g. svaka noć – every night).

What tense/aspect is donosi, and why not something like donijeti?

donosi is the present tense of the imperfective verb donositi (to bring, repeatedly or in progress).

Croatian has aspect:

donositi – imperfective (ongoing / habitual: “to be bringing”, “to bring regularly”)
donijeti – perfective (one complete act: “to bring once / to have brought”)

For routines and habits, you use the imperfective:

Ona svaki dan donosi ručak na posao.
= She habitually brings lunch to work.

Using donijeti in the “present” would usually point to a single future event (not a daily habit), so donosi is the correct choice here.

What is the difference between donositi and nositi? Could I say Ona svaki dan nosi ručak na posao?

You can say Ona svaki dan nosi ručak na posao, and it will be understood, but there is a nuance:

nositi = to carry / wear (no specific direction implied)
donositi = to bring (carry to some place or person)

In this sentence you want “bring (to work)”, so donosi is the most natural verb.
nosi focuses more on the physical carrying; donosi clearly encodes the idea of bringing it to the workplace.

Why is ručak in that form? What case is it?

ručak (lunch) is in the accusative singular, because it is the direct object of the verb donosi.

Croatian:

Subject (who?): Ona
Verb (does what?): donosi
Direct object (what does she bring?): ručak → accusative

For masculine inanimate nouns like ručak, the accusative singular form is the same as the nominative singular form, so it looks unchanged, but its function is object.

What does na posao literally mean, and why not u posao or na poslu?

na posao literally means “onto/to work” and here it means “to her workplace” (direction, movement).

na posao – to work (movement towards the workplace)
- Idem na posao. – I’m going to work.
na poslu – at work (location, being there)
- Ona je na poslu. – She is at work.
u posao – into the work/task (figurative, into the activity itself)
- Uložio je puno truda u posao. – He put a lot of effort into the work.

So in this sentence, na posao is correct because she is bringing something to the workplace.

Why is posao used, and not rad? Both seem to mean “work”.

Both relate to “work”, but they are used differently:

posao
- “job”, “work (as employment)”, “task / assignment”
- often used for workplace: ići na posao – go to work
rad
- more abstract “work” (as an activity, or in physics: work, academic papers)
- used in words like raditi (to work), radnik (worker), radno vrijeme (working hours)

When we say “bring lunch to work (the place)”, Croatian normally uses posao, not rad, so na posao is natural.

Can I change the word order? For example, can I say Svaki dan ona donosi ručak na posao?

Yes, Croatian word order is flexible. Some common variants:

Ona svaki dan donosi ručak na posao. (neutral: starting with subject)
Svaki dan ona donosi ručak na posao. (slight emphasis on “every day”)
Svaki dan donosi ručak na posao. (subject pronoun dropped; still neutral)

All are correct. Word order changes usually affect emphasis, not basic meaning.

If I remove na posao, does the sentence still work?

Yes:

Ona svaki dan donosi ručak.
= She brings lunch every day.

Now you’re not saying where she brings it, just that she does it every day.
Adding na posao specifies the destination: to work.

Does the verb form donosi show that the subject is feminine, since it’s ona?

No. In the present tense, Croatian verbs do not change for gender, only for person and number.

On donosi ručak na posao. – He brings lunch to work.
Ona donosi ručak na posao. – She brings lunch to work.

The verb donosi is the same for he and she. Gender appears in things like past participles and adjectives, not in the present-tense verb ending.

How would I make this sentence negative? Where does ne go?

The negative particle ne goes directly before the verb:

Ona ne donosi ručak na posao. – She doesn’t bring lunch to work.

If you keep svaki dan, it can sound like “Every day she doesn’t bring lunch”, which may be stylistically odd. More natural options:

Ona ne donosi ručak na posao. – She doesn’t bring lunch to work (generally).
Ona nikad ne donosi ručak na posao. – She never brings lunch to work.

So the basic rule: ne + verb → ne donosi.

How do you pronounce svaki and donosi? Any silent letters?

There are no silent letters; everything is pronounced.

svaki → roughly [svah-kee]
- s as in “see”
- v as in “very”
- a like “a” in “father”
- k as in “key”
- i like “ee” in “see”
donosi → roughly [doh-no-see]
- d as in “dog”
- o like “o” in “more” (but shorter)
- n as in “no”
- s as in “see”
- final i again like “ee” in “see”

Stress patterns vary by dialect, but a safe learner version is something like SVa-ki and DO-no-si, each word with one clear stressed syllable.