Kiša pada, ali ipak idemo u park.

Yes, literally kiša pada means rain falls or the rain is falling, but in Croatian this is a normal way to say it’s raining.

• kiša = rain
• pada = falls / is falling

So Croatian often uses a regular subject + verb structure where English uses it as a dummy subject.

You will also often hear:

• Pada kiša. = It’s raining.

Both Kiša pada and Pada kiša are correct. The difference is mostly word order and emphasis.

Both mean it’s raining, but the word order changes the emphasis slightly.

• Kiša pada puts more focus on kiša (rain).
• Pada kiša sounds a bit more neutral and is often very natural in everyday speech.

Croatian word order is more flexible than English word order, because endings often show the grammatical role more clearly.

English needs it in weather expressions like it’s raining, but Croatian does not use a dummy subject in the same way.

Instead, Croatian simply says what is happening:

• Kiša pada. = Rain is falling / It’s raining.
• Snijeg pada. = Snow is falling / It’s snowing.

So the sentence has a real subject, kiša, and no extra it is needed.

Ipak means something like:

• still
• nevertheless
• all the same
• despite that

So:

• ali = but
• ipak = still / nevertheless

Together, ali ipak gives a stronger contrast:

• Kiša pada, ali ipak idemo u park.
• It’s raining, but we’re still going to the park.

In English, using both but and still is also possible, and the effect is similar.

Yes, you could say just one of them, but the nuance changes a little.

• Kiša pada, ali idemo u park.
  = It’s raining, but we’re going to the park.

• Kiša pada, ipak idemo u park.
  = It’s raining; nevertheless, we’re going to the park.

• Kiša pada, ali ipak idemo u park.
  = It’s raining, but we’re still going to the park.

So ali ipak is not wrong or unnatural. It adds emphasis to the idea that the second action happens despite the first fact.

Because u can take different cases depending on meaning.

Here the sentence expresses movement toward a place, so Croatian uses u + accusative:

• ići u park = to go into/to the park

That is why we get:

• park → accusative singular: park

But when u means in or inside a place, with no movement toward it, Croatian uses the locative:

• u parku = in the park

Compare:

• Idemo u park. = We are going to the park.
• Mi smo u parku. = We are in the park.

Because park is a masculine noun, and inanimate masculine nouns usually have the same form in the nominative singular and accusative singular.

So:

• nominative: park
• accusative: park

That can make it look as if nothing changed, but grammatically it is still accusative because it follows u in a direction/motion meaning.

Compare with a masculine animate noun, where accusative does change:

• vidim čovjeka = I see the man

But:

• idemo u park = we’re going to the park

Croatian often uses the present tense for actions that are happening now or are understood as current plans.

• idemo literally = we go / we are going

In context, it can mean:

• we’re going to the park
• we are going to the park anyway
• sometimes even we’ll go to the park if the situation makes that clear

So Croatian present tense is often broader than a single English present form.

Yes, idemo can sometimes function like let’s go, depending on context.

For example:

• Idemo! = Let’s go!

But in your sentence, idemo u park is most naturally understood as a statement:

• we are going to the park
• we’re going to the park anyway

The rest of the sentence makes it clear that this is not a command or suggestion, but a statement of intention/action.

In Croatian, ali (but) normally introduces a contrasting clause, and it is separated by a comma.

So:

• Kiša pada, ali ipak idemo u park.

This is similar to English, where we also usually put a comma before but when it joins two full clauses.

Croatian has no articles, so there is no direct equivalent of a or the.

• park can mean a park or the park
• context tells you which is meant

In this sentence, English would probably translate it as the park if both speakers know which park they mean, but Croatian does not need a separate word to mark that.

This is true for nouns in general:

• kuća = house / a house / the house
• auto = car / a car / the car

Pada is the 3rd person singular present tense of the verb padati or, in many learning contexts, connected with pasti/padati meaning to fall.

Here it agrees with kiša, which is singular:

• kiša = rain
• pada = falls / is falling

So grammatically, Croatian treats kiša as the subject of the verb.

Yes, kiša is a feminine singular noun.

You can often recognize many feminine nouns because they end in -a, though that is not an absolute rule.

It matters because the verb must agree with the subject in number and person, and in some other parts of Croatian grammar gender becomes important too, especially with adjectives and past tense forms.

For example:

• hladna kiša = cold rain
• jaka kiša = heavy rain

The adjective changes form to match the feminine noun kiša.

Kiša is pronounced approximately KEE-sha.

A few helpful points:

• k = like English k
• i = like ee in see
• š = sh as in ship
• a = a short open a, roughly like a in father

So kiša sounds close to KEE-sha, not KISS-a.

Yes. A few natural variants are possible:

• Pada kiša, ali ipak idemo u park.
• Kiša pada, ali svejedno idemo u park.
• Pada kiša, ali svejedno idemo u park.

Here svejedno can also mean still / anyway / all the same in this kind of context.

These versions are all understandable, with small differences in style and emphasis.