Možete li mi još jednom reći svoje prezime?

Možete li is a very common way to form a polite yes/no question in Croatian.

• možete = you can / you are able to
• li = a question particle used in standard Croatian yes/no questions

So Možete li... ? means something like Can you... ? or Could you... ?

It is the polite/formal form, or it can also address more than one person.

Li marks the sentence as a yes/no question.

In standard Croatian, it often comes right after the first stressed word, especially after the verb:

• Možete li mi reći...? = Can you tell me...?
• Znate li...? = Do you know...?

English learners often expect Croatian to use intonation alone, but li is a very normal grammatical way to ask questions.

Možete is the 2nd person plural form of moći (to be able to / can), but it is also used for formal singular address.

So it can mean:

• you all can
• you can when speaking politely to one person

By contrast:

• možeš = informal singular you can

So:

• Možeš li mi reći svoje prezime? = informal, to one person you know well
• Možete li mi reći svoje prezime? = polite/formal, or to several people

Mi means to me.

It is the short clitic form of the pronoun ja in the dative case:

• mi = to me
• ti = to you
• mu / joj = to him / to her

So:

• reći mi = to tell me

The sentence literally contains the idea Can you tell to me... ?, even though natural English just says tell me.

Još jednom means once again, one more time, or again.

Breakdown:

• još = still / more / yet
• jednom = once / one time (instrumental form of jedan in this expression)

Together:

• još jednom = one more time

So the speaker is asking the person to repeat their surname.

Reći means to say / to tell.

Here it appears in the infinitive because it follows možete:

• Možete li... reći...? = Can you... say/tell...?

This is similar to English:

• Can you tell me...?
• Could you say...?

Croatian commonly uses the infinitive after modal verbs like:

• moći = can
• morati = must
• htjeti = want

So možete reći = you can say/tell.

This is one of the most important grammar points in the sentence.

Svoje is the reflexive possessive pronoun, meaning roughly one’s own.

Croatian often uses svoj when the possessor is the same as the subject of the sentence.

Here, the subject is you (understood in možete), and the surname belongs to that same person, so Croatian normally uses:

• svoje prezime = your own surname

This sounds more natural than vaše prezime in this structure.

A useful idea is:

• svoj = the subject’s own
• vaš = your, but not necessarily reflexive in this grammatical sense

So in this sentence, svoje is the standard and natural choice.

Svoje is a form of svoj.

Here it matches prezime, which is:

• neuter
• singular

Because prezime is the direct object here, you might expect accusative, but for neuter singular nouns and adjectives/pronouns, the accusative looks the same as the nominative.

So:

• svoje prezime = neuter singular form, used here as the object

Prezime means surname / last name, and it is a neuter noun.

Many Croatian neuter nouns end in:

• -o
• -e

So prezime is normal in that respect.

In this sentence it is the direct object of reći, but since neuter singular nouns usually have the same form in nominative and accusative, it stays:

• prezime

Yes, it is polite and natural.

It sounds like something you might say:

• at an office
• on the phone
• when checking information
• when you did not hear clearly the first time

The politeness comes especially from:

• Možete li... = polite question form
• još jednom = softens the repetition request

It is equivalent to English phrases like:

• Could you tell me your surname again?
• Could you repeat your last name for me?

Yes, both are possible.

Možete can refer to:

1. one person formally/politely
2. more than one person

Usually the context tells you which one is meant.

In this particular sentence, the most likely meaning is that the speaker is politely asking one person to repeat their surname.

The sentence is:

Možete li mi još jednom reći svoje prezime?

A rough breakdown is:

• Možete li = Can you...?
• mi = to me
• još jednom = once again
• reći = tell/say
• svoje prezime = your surname

Literal order: Can you to me once again say your own surname?

Natural English: Could you tell me your surname again?

Croatian word order is flexible, but this order is very natural and common.

To one person informally, you would usually say:

Možeš li mi još jednom reći svoje prezime?

The only change is:

• možete → možeš

Everything else stays the same.

So:

• Možete li... = polite/formal
• Možeš li... = informal singular