PAST TENSE

Before moving forward, let’s take a moment to review how the past tense works in Croatian. You already learned this in your first year, so what follows is just a quick overview of the main patterns. The examples will remind you how the forms are built. Of course, you also encountered some irregular verbs last year, but for now, we’ll focus only on the main patterns.

☰ Verb BITI

Generally, the Past Tense consists of two parts:

• the unstressed present tense form (the short form) of the auxiliary verb biti (to be)
• active participle of the verb.

Thus, in the case of the verb biti in the past tense (for example: I was), you basically use the verb biti twice.

How to form the active participle?

To form the active participle of a verb, start with the infinitive form of the verb (in this case, the verb biti), remove the final –ti, and add the required ending to make the gender and number agree with the subject of the sentence.

☰ Verbs in –ati, –iti, –jeti

Past Tense of the verbs ending in -ati (gledati), -iti (posjetiti), -jeti (željeti)

Just as with the verb biti, for verbs that end in -ati or -iti, we need to remove their infinitive ending -ti and add the appropriate form that will reflect the subject of the sentence. For example, in order to express the idea that you watched a movie we need to use the verb gledati in the active participle form, together with the verb to be.

Have in mind: Rarely would we use the personal pronouns for neuter gender. It’s more common to use a noun, for example – Dijete je gledalo film.

The same pattern will be used for verbs ending in -iti (example: kupiti).

Verbs ending in -jeti will have the same pattern (example: željeti).

You will remove the final -ti and add a designated ending. Look at the pattern below. However, some additional changes occur for masculine singular form.

1.4 Zadatak 1: Prijatelji

Complete each sentence with the correct past tense form of the verb. Pay attention to gender and number.

• naručiti, dočekati, planirati, gledati, platiti, napraviti, kupiti, popiti, završiti

☰ Verb IĆI

As you already know, all verbs in Croatian belong in one of the two possible categories:

• ending in -ti (gledati, misliti, živjeti, trčati, etc.)
• ending in -ći (reći, ići, leći, peći, etc.)

In this section we will focus on two verbs in -ći that reflect motion (i.e., having the meaning of moving toward a certain place). These verbs are: ići (to go) and doći (to come).

The verb ići

Most of the verbs that are related to motion end in -ći, will behave in this way. In other words, when forming the past tense of ići, for example, the -ć- will change to -š- to which we need to add the appropriate ending (masculine/feminine/neuter) and number (singular/plural). The same rule will apply to all other motion verbs that are connected to the verb ići (going somewhere). Look at the few examples reflecting singular masculine/feminine forms above.

1.4 Zadatak 2: Glagoli na –ći

Complete the sentences with the correct past tense form of the verb. More than one option is possible at times.

☰ Verb REĆI

The verb reći (to say) also has changes in its form when using it in the past tense. When forming the Past Tense, the -ć- changes to -k- before adding the appropriate ending (masculine/feminine/neuter) and number (singular/plural).

☰ Reflexive verb

When it comes to reflexive verbs, the pattern is the same. They follow the general rule in the past tense. The only difference is that they will have the reflexive pronoun se. Let us look at the verb voziti se in the 1st person singular form, in both the masculine and feminine genders.

The cluster verb biti + reflexive pronoun se will always stay in that order. The cluster verb biti + reflexive pronoun se will change its place, depending on whether or not we use a personal name or a pronoun as the subject. Let’s look at the reflexive verb sunčati se (to sunbathe) for example in all its forms.

Reflexive verb when used with a personal pronoun or name