Ostani u čekaonici dok te doktorica ne pozove.

Ostani is the imperative form of ostati, meaning to stay / to remain. It is used when speaking to one person informally.

So:

• ostani = stay! (one person, informal)
• ostanite = stay! (more than one person, or one person formally/politely)

Both can work, but they are not exactly the same.

• ostani emphasizes remaining where you are / not leaving
• čekaj emphasizes waiting

So Ostani u čekaonici... sounds like stay in the waiting room, while Čekaj u čekaonici... would sound more like wait in the waiting room. In this context, ostani is very natural because the speaker is telling someone to remain there until the next event happens.

Because this sentence describes location, not movement.

In Croatian:

• u + locative = in / inside a place
• u + accusative = into a place

So:

• u čekaonici = in the waiting room
• u čekaonicu = into the waiting room

Here the person is already supposed to be there, so Croatian uses the locative.

It is the locative singular of čekaonica.

Base form:

• čekaonica = waiting room

After u when talking about being in a place, the noun goes into the locative:

• u čekaonici

This is very common with place words:

• u sobi = in the room
• u školi = at school / in school
• u bolnici = in the hospital

Here dok means until.

Croatian dok can sometimes mean while, but in this sentence it means until, because it introduces the point in time when the waiting/staying ends.

So the structure is:

• Ostani ... dok ... = Stay ... until ...

Because te is the short accusative form of you.

In this sentence, the doctor is performing the action on you: she calls you. That makes you the direct object, so Croatian uses the accusative.

• te = short unstressed you
• tebe = full/emphatic you
• ti usually means to you (dative), not direct object

So:

• dok te doktorica ne pozove = until the doctor calls you

This is one of the most common things learners ask, and yes, it feels strange at first.

After dok meaning until, Croatian normally uses ne + perfective present:

• dok ne dođe = until he/she comes
• dok ne završi = until he/she finishes
• dok te doktorica ne pozove = until the doctor calls you

So the ne here does not mean ordinary negation in the English sense. It is part of the normal Croatian pattern for until.

Pozove is the 3rd person singular present tense form of the perfective verb pozvati.

That means:

• pozvati = to call / invite (perfective)
• pozove = he/she calls

But in sentences like this, a perfective present often refers to a future event, especially in subordinate clauses after words like dok.

So even though the form is technically present, the meaning is:

• until the doctor calls you

not

• until the doctor is calling you

Because Croatian usually does not use the ordinary future tense in this kind of subordinate clause. Instead, it often uses the present form of a perfective verb.

So Croatian prefers:

• dok te doktorica ne pozove

rather than something like:

• dok će te doktorica pozvati (not natural here)

This is a very normal Croatian pattern: a present form can refer to a future event when the context makes that clear.

Doktorica means female doctor. Croatian marks grammatical gender in nouns, so if the doctor is a woman, doktorica is natural.

• doktor = male doctor
• doktorica = female doctor

You may also hear:

• liječnik = male physician/doctor
• liječnica = female physician/doctor

So the sentence specifically tells you the doctor is female.

The word order is not completely fixed, but te is a clitic (a short unstressed word), and clitics have placement rules.

In standard Croatian, short pronouns like te usually appear very early in the clause, often right after a conjunction like dok. That is why:

• dok te doktorica ne pozove = natural
• dok doktorica te ne pozove = not the normal standard order

So this is a good sentence to remember as a model for clitic placement.

You would change both the imperative and the pronoun:

• Ostanite u čekaonici dok vas doktorica ne pozove.

Changes:

• ostani → ostanite
• te → vas

So:

• ostani / te = one person, informal
• ostanite / vas = plural or polite/formal singular

Yes. The verb pozvati can mean to call, to summon, or to invite, depending on context.

In a medical setting, doktorica te pozove is best understood as:

• the doctor calls you in
• the doctor calls your name
• the doctor summons you

So the exact English wording can vary, even though the Croatian verb stays the same.