Learn Hardcore Croatian: Jutros je pao snijeg u parku. - This morning snow fell in the park.

The real subject is often explicit (here it’s snijeg – snow).
Or the verb appears on its own, in 3rd person singular: Sniježi. = It’s snowing.

So:

Jutros je pao snijeg u parku.
Literally: This-morning is fallen snow in (the) park.

There is no separate word for it because the sentence already has a normal subject (snijeg), and Croatian doesn’t need a filler subject like English does.

Why do we need both je and pao? Isn’t that like having two verbs?

Je and pao together form the Croatian past tense (perfect) of the verb pasti (to fall).

je – 3rd person singular present of biti (to be), used here as an auxiliary
pao – past participle of pasti

Together: je pao ≈ has fallen / fell.

So the structure is:

[auxiliary biti] + [past participle]
je pao, je pala, su pali, etc.

You can think of je pao as one tense unit, like English has fallen. You’re not really saying “is fell”; you’re forming the normal Croatian past tense.

Why is it pao and not something like pala or palo?

The past participle agrees in gender and number with the subject.

Subject: snijeg – masculine, singular
Past participle: pao – masculine, singular form of pasti

If the subject were feminine or neuter, the participle would change:

Kisela kiša je pala. – Acid rain fell.
- kiša – feminine singular → pala
Tu je jutros palo kamenje. – Rocks fell here this morning.
- kamenje – grammatically neuter singular → palo

In our sentence:

Snijeg (m.) → je pao (m.sg.)

What exactly is jutros? Is it the same as jutro?

Jutro is a noun: morning.
Jutros is an adverb: this morning.

jutro – can change form (decline):
- Jutro je hladno. – The morning is cold.
jutros – fixed form; answers when? (this morning):
- Jutros je pao snijeg. – Snow fell this morning.

You don’t decline jutros; it always stays jutros and works like an adverb of time (similar to danas – today, jučer – yesterday).

What case is parku in u parku, and why isn’t it just park?

Here parku is in the locative singular case of park.

The preposition u (in, into) can be followed by:

Locative – to express location (where?)
- u parku – in the park
Accusative – to express direction (to where? / into where?)
- u park – into the park

In Jutros je pao snijeg u parku, the meaning is where did the snow fall? → in the park → locative:

Nominative: park
Locative: u parku

So u parku = in the park (location), not into the park (movement).

Could I say Jutros je pao snijeg u park instead of u parku?

You could, but it would change the meaning and sound odd in most contexts.

u parku (locative) – where did the snow fall? → in the park (location)
u park (accusative) – into where did the snow fall? → into the park (direction / movement toward)

Jutros je pao snijeg u park would sound like:

This morning snow fell into the park – as if it was coming from outside into the park, which is a strange image for snow.

For natural, neutral description of where it snowed, use:

Jutros je pao snijeg u parku. – This morning, it snowed in the park.

Why is it snijeg and not something like snijega?

Snijeg is the subject of the sentence, so it is in the nominative case (the “dictionary form”).

Basic pattern:

Nominative for the subject: Tko? Što? – Who? What?
- Snijeg je pao. – Snow fell.

Snijega is the genitive form of snijeg, used in contexts like:

Nema snijega. – There is no snow.
Puno snijega. – A lot of snow.

So:

Subject: snijeg (nominative) → Snijeg je pao.
Quantity / absence: snijega (genitive) → Nema snijega.

Can I change the word order? For example, can I say Snijeg je jutros pao u parku?

Yes. Croatian word order is flexible, and different orders sound natural, with slightly different emphasis:

Jutros je pao snijeg u parku.
– Neutral; slight focus on when (this morning).
Snijeg je jutros pao u parku.
– Slightly more focus on snijeg as the topic (as for the snow, it fell this morning in the park).
U parku je jutros pao snijeg.
– Focus on where (in the park, not somewhere else).
Pao je snijeg jutros u parku.
– Often used to emphasize the event of snow falling (contrast: it hadn’t fallen before, now it has).

All are grammatically correct; the differences are mostly in nuance and emphasis, not in basic meaning.

Is there a Croatian verb that means “to snow” like English “it snowed”?

Yes. There is a verb sniježiti (to snow), and also the pair padati / pasti (to fall – ongoing / completed) used with snijeg.

Common options:

Jutros je pao snijeg.
– Snow fell this morning. (completed event; result = there is snow)
Jutros je sniježilo.
– It snowed this morning. (weather verb, no explicit subject)
Jutros je padao snijeg.
– Snow was falling this morning. (ongoing process; emphasizes duration rather than result)

All are correct, but:

je pao snijeg: completed, result-focused
je sniježilo: weather in general, no noun subject
je padao snijeg: process, like it was snowing

What is the difference between snijeg and sneg?

They mean the same thing – snow – but belong to different standard varieties:

snijeg – standard Croatian (and also used in Bosnian)
sneg – standard Serbian

Spelling and pronunciation differ:

snijeg – pronounced roughly snyeg (with ije)
sneg – simpler, sneg

If you are specifically learning Croatian, you should use snijeg:
Jutros je pao snijeg u parku.

What tense/aspect nuance does je pao have compared to forms like pada or padao je?

The verb pair is:

padati – imperfective (to be falling, ongoing / repeated)
pasti – perfective (to fall as a single, completed event)

In our sentence:

je pao – past tense of pasti (perfective) → completed event
- Jutros je pao snijeg. – Snow fell this morning (and now it’s down / on the ground).

Compare:

Pada snijeg. – It is snowing (right now). (present, ongoing, padati)
Padao je snijeg. – Snow was falling / it was snowing. (past, ongoing process, padati)
Pao je snijeg. – Snow has fallen. (focus on result: now there is snow)

So je pao here presents snow as a finished event with a clear result, which fits talking about what happened earlier this morning.