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Dr. Frane Karabatić

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🔗 1 | 6 | Gramatika: Buduće vrijeme

The future tense

Just like the verb biti which has its stressed form (ja jesam) and unstressed form (ja sam), the verb htjeti is the only other verb in Croatian that has the same structure.

The stressed form

ja hoću
ti hoćeš
on / ona / ono hoće
mi hoćemo
vi hoćete
oni / one / ona hoće

The unstressed form

ja ću
ti ćeš
on / ona / ono će
mi ćemo
vi ćete
oni / one / ona će

❗ As you can see, the unstressed form is created by cutting off the initial ho– part of the verb in its stressed form.

When do we use stressed and when do we use the unstressed form of the verb htjeti?

Stressed form:

is used when we intend to indicate ‘’wanting’’ – like in the examples: (1) Ja hoću tortu, or (2) Ja hoću kupiti tortu.
is used when we want to ask if someone will do something in the future – like in the example: Hoćeš li ići u Zagreb?

Unstressed form

is used to form the future tense in Croatian

❗ Writing and Pronunciation

✍️ Writing

The most common structure of creating the future tense in Croatia is:

subject (who is doing what)	unstressed form of verb htjeti	infinitive of the verb
↓	↓	↓
Santiago	će	putovati

However, when we know who the subject of the sentence is, in everyday conversation, people often omit the subject. Since we know it is Santiago who will be traveling, we can easily say:

infinitive of the verb	unstressed form of verb htjeti
↓	↓
Putovat	će

The order is important as you will write the infinitive form of the verb differently. Look at both sentences.

Santigo će putovati.
Putovat će.

As you can see, when omitting the subject of the sentence, the word order is different. The infinitive takes the first place, followed by the unstressed form of htjeti. If the infinitive precedes the unstressed form of htjeti, then the final –i of any –ti verb is omitted. The final –i does not disappear when the infinitive ends in -ći. Look at the following examples:

Infinitives Ending in -ti

shortened infinitive — Kupit ću tortu. — I will buy a cake.

Many of the verbs you know will form their future in this way, e.g. kupit ću, razumijet ću, govorit ću, etc.

Infinitives Ending in -ći

full infinitive — Peći ću tortu. — I will bake a cake.

You know some verbs that will form their future in this way, e.g. reći ću, ići ću, doći ću, leći ću, etc.

🗣️ Speech

In speech, when the infinitive takes the first place followed by the unstressed form of htjeti, you will need to pronounce everything as one word! That means that in the sentence: Učit će hrvatski jezik. – The Future Tense structure will be pronounced as one word /učiće/. In pronunciation the -t- is omitted. It is not natural to make a pause between ‘’kupit’’ and ‘’ću.’’ In other words, it is not natural to hear the final ‘’t’’ of the verb’s infinitive form.

☰ Question form

Question form in the Future Tense: Will you…?

In order to express the question form, we need to follow the structure:

stressed form of verb htjeti	LI	infinitive of the verb
↓	↓	↓
(ti) Hoćeš	li	učiti?

(ja) hoću li…
(ti) hoćeš li…
(on/ona/ono) hoće li…
(mi) hoćemo li…
(vi) hoćete li…
(oni/one/ona) hoće li…

☰ Negative form

Negative form in the Future Tense: I Will Not…

In order to create a negative form of the verb htjeti, you need to use ne + the unstressed form, written all together.

(ja) neću
(ti) nećeš
(on/ona/ono) neće
(mi) nećemo
(vi) nećete
(oni/one/ona) neće

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