Kad čitam naglas, brže čujem gdje nedostaje veznik i gdje perfekt ne zvuči prirodno.

Both kad and kada mean when.

• kad is the shorter, very common everyday form
• kada is slightly more formal or emphatic

So in this sentence, Kad čitam naglas... is completely natural and conversational. You could also say Kada čitam naglas... with basically the same meaning.

In Croatian, the present tense is very often used for:

• habits
• repeated actions
• general truths
• things that happen whenever a certain condition is true

So Kad čitam naglas, brže čujem... means:

• Whenever I read aloud, I notice/hear more quickly...

This is similar to English When I read aloud, I hear..., where English also uses the present for habitual meaning.

Naglas means out loud or aloud.

So:

• čitati naglas = to read aloud

It is an adverb, not an adjective, so it describes how the reading is done.

Examples:

• Čitam naglas. = I’m reading aloud.
• Reci to naglas. = Say it out loud.

Literally, yes: brže is the comparative adverb of brzo:

• brzo = quickly
• brže = more quickly / faster

So brže čujem literally means I hear more quickly.

But in this sentence, čujem is not just physical hearing. It has a broader sense like:

• I notice more quickly
• I can hear more easily
• I detect sooner

That is very natural in Croatian, especially in contexts involving language, rhythm, or style.

Croatian often uses verbs of hearing in places where English might prefer:

• notice
• pick up
• realize
• detect

Here the idea is that by reading aloud, the speaker can hear problems in the text. So čujem works very naturally because the sentence is about how something sounds.

A more interpretive English translation might be:

• When I read aloud, I notice more quickly where a conjunction is missing and where the perfect tense doesn’t sound natural.

So čujem is both literal and slightly metaphorical.

Yes, gdje literally means where, and here it introduces clauses meaning:

• where a conjunction is missing
• where the perfect tense doesn’t sound natural

In English, we often use where in the same flexible way:

• I can see where the problem is
• I notice where the sentence breaks down

So this is not only about physical location. It means at what point / in which place in the text.

The sentence says:

• gdje nedostaje veznik i gdje perfekt ne zvuči prirodno

Croatian often repeats the connector when two parallel subordinate clauses are being joined. This makes the structure clearer and more balanced.

So the repeated gdje helps show there are two separate things being detected:

1. where a conjunction is missing
2. where the perfect tense doesn’t sound natural

You might sometimes hear a reduced version without repetition in speech, but repeating gdje is clearer and very natural in writing.

Nedostajati means to be missing or to be lacking.

In this sentence:

• nedostaje veznik = a conjunction is missing

Here, veznik is the grammatical subject, in the nominative singular.

This can feel different from English, because English often says:

• a conjunction is missing

Croatian does the same here.

But nedostajati can also be used with a person in the dative when the meaning is to be lacking to someone or to be missed by someone:

• Nedostaje mi kava. = I’m missing coffee / I need coffee.
• Nedostaješ mi. = I miss you.

So in your sentence, the structure is the simpler impersonal idea: the conjunction is missing.

Veznik means conjunction in grammar: a word like and, but, because, etc.

Examples of Croatian conjunctions:

• i = and
• ali = but
• jer = because
• da = that / in order to

So gdje nedostaje veznik means there is a place in the sentence or text where a linking word should be there, but isn’t.

Perfekt is the Croatian grammatical term for the tense usually translated as the perfect or, more practically in learning materials, the common past tense form built with:

• the present of biti = to be
• the l-participle

Examples:

• radio sam
• čitala je
• smo došli

In many everyday contexts, perfekt is simply the normal way to express past actions in Croatian.

So in this sentence, gdje perfekt ne zvuči prirodno means:

• where using the perfect tense doesn’t sound natural

That could mean another tense, aspect, or construction would sound better.

Because names of tenses and grammar categories in Croatian are normally written with lowercase letters.

So:

• prezent
• perfekt
• aorist
• imperfekt
• futur

That is standard usage unless the word begins a sentence.

The present tense here expresses a general judgment:

• it doesn’t sound natural
• it sounds unnatural

The sentence is not talking about one specific past moment. It is talking about what the speaker notices in general whenever reading aloud.

So the structure is:

• Kad čitam naglas, ... perfekt ne zvuči prirodno.

That means:

• When I read aloud, I hear/notice more quickly where the perfect tense doesn’t sound natural.

This is another example of Croatian using the present tense for repeated or general situations.

In this context, prirodno means:

• natural
• idiomatic
• the way a native speaker would normally say it

If you said normalno, it would sound more like:

• normal
• not strange
• not abnormal

For language and style, prirodno is usually the better word when you mean that something sounds fluent and idiomatic.

So:

• ne zvuči prirodno = doesn’t sound natural
• not just isn’t normal, but more specifically doesn’t sound like good, native, smooth Croatian

Not completely. Croatian word order is fairly flexible, though some versions sound more natural than others.

The original:

• Kad čitam naglas, brže čujem gdje nedostaje veznik i gdje perfekt ne zvuči prirodno.

This is natural because it flows from:

1. condition/time frame
2. main result
3. two things noticed

You could move some parts for emphasis, for example:

• Kad čitam naglas, gdje nedostaje veznik i gdje perfekt ne zvuči prirodno čujem brže.

But that sounds less natural and more marked.

So the original order is not the only grammatically possible one, but it is a very good, natural default.

It can mean either, depending on context.

Croatian present tense often covers both:

• a current action
• a habitual action

So čitam naglas can mean:

• I am reading aloud or
• I read aloud

In your sentence, because of Kad and the general statement that follows, the habitual meaning is much more likely:

• Whenever I read aloud...

So context, not the verb form alone, tells you which meaning is intended.