Jutros je bila gusta magla, pa je svaki pješak prelazio cestu vrlo polako.

Jutros means this morning: specifically the morning of today.

By contrast, ujutro usually means in the morning in a more general sense, or it can refer to a morning time without emphasizing today.

So:

• Jutros je bila gusta magla = this morning there was thick fog
• Ujutro je često magla = in the morning it is often foggy

Because je is a clitic, a short unstressed word that usually appears in the second position in the clause.

In Jutros je bila gusta magla, the first element is Jutros, so je comes right after it.

This is very normal in Croatian:

• Jutros je bila...
• Danas je...
• Tamo je...

You can sometimes also hear or use bila je, but Jutros je bila... is the most natural neutral order here.

Because they agree with magla, and magla is a feminine singular noun.

Croatian adjectives and past participles must agree with the noun or subject in gender, number, and often case.

So:

• magla = feminine singular
• gusta = feminine singular form of gust
• bila = feminine singular past participle of biti

That is why you get gusta magla and je bila, not masculine forms like gust or bio.

Croatian has no articles. There is no direct equivalent of English a or the.

So magla can mean fog, a fog, or the fog, depending on context. The same is true for pješak.

If Croatian wants to be more specific, it can use other words such as:

• taj = that
• ovaj = this
• jedan = one, sometimes like a certain

But in a normal sentence like this, no article is needed.

Literally, gusta magla is dense fog or thick fog.

The adjective gust means dense, thick, or closely packed. With magla, Croatian commonly uses gust just as English uses thick for fog.

Because magla is feminine singular nominative, the adjective becomes gusta.

So:

• masculine: gust
• feminine: gusta
• neuter: gusto

Here pa links the two clauses and means something like:

• so
• and so
• therefore
• and then

In this sentence, it shows a natural consequence: there was thick fog, so every pedestrian crossed the road very slowly.

It is a very common everyday connector in Croatian, often more conversational and flowing than a more formal word like stoga or zato.

Because svaki means every or each, and in Croatian it is followed by a singular noun.

So:

• svaki pješak = every pedestrian
• not svaki pješaci

This is actually similar to English, because we also say every pedestrian, not every pedestrians.

The verb is singular too, because the grammatical subject is singular:

• svaki pješak prelazio je... or pa je svaki pješak prelazio...

This is a question of aspect, which is very important in Croatian.

• prelazio is from the imperfective verb prelaziti
• prešao is from the perfective verb prijeći

Here prelazio is used because the sentence describes an ongoing or repeated situation in the past: because of the fog, pedestrians were crossing slowly. The focus is on the process, not on the completed result.

If you used prešao, it would sound more like a completed single crossing:

• pješak je prešao cestu = the pedestrian crossed the road, finished crossing it

So prelazio fits the scene-setting meaning much better.

Because cestu is the accusative singular form of cesta.

The verb prelaziti takes a direct object, and direct objects are often in the accusative case.

So:

• nominative: cesta = road
• accusative: cestu = road, as the thing being crossed

That is why the sentence has:

• prelazio cestu = was crossing the road

Vrlo means very, and polako means slowly.

So vrlo polako = very slowly.

A useful detail: polako can also mean slowly, carefully, or even easy, take it slow in other contexts. But here it clearly means the manner of movement: the pedestrians crossed very slowly.

Yes, Croatian word order is more flexible than English word order, but it is not random.

This sentence is neutral and natural:

• Jutros je bila gusta magla, pa je svaki pješak prelazio cestu vrlo polako.

You could also say:

• Jutros je bila gusta magla, pa je svaki pješak vrlo polako prelazio cestu.
• Svaki je pješak prelazio cestu vrlo polako.

These versions are still grammatical, but they shift emphasis slightly.

The main thing to remember is that clitics such as je tend to appear near the beginning of the clause, usually in second position.

A few Croatian spelling rules help here:

• j is pronounced like English y
• š is pronounced like English sh
• c is pronounced like ts

So:

• pješak sounds roughly like PYE-shak
• cestu sounds roughly like TSES-too

Also, Croatian spelling is very regular, so once you know the sound values of the letters, pronunciation becomes much easier than in English.