01. Alfabet en uitspraak.

Alvast één ding dat in het Kroatisch gemakkelijk is: elke letter stelt steeds dezelfde klank voor. Dus niet zoals in het Nederlands waar bvb. de e op drie verschillende manieren kan uitgesproken worden: bed, lezen

Letters b, d, f, h, k, l, m, n, p, r, s, t, v, z are pronounced more or less as in English. The letter g is pronounced always as in English go or get.

The following letters have a special pronunciation in Croatian:

Specific letters in Croatian
c	as tz in tzar
č	as ch in child
ć	similar to č, a bit ‘softer’
đ	as j in joke
j	as y in you
š	as sh in ship
ž	as s in pleasure

Sequences of letters dž, lj and nj are considered single letters in Croatian; they are pronounced as follows:

Specific two-letter sequences
dž	similar to đ, a bit ‘harder’
lj	like an l fused with a j as Italian gl (e.g. in figlia) or like English million
nj	like an n fused with a j like Spanish ñ (e.g. in señor) or Italian gn (e.g. in bagno) or like English onion

De letter(combinaties) in deze tabel zullen we verder 'specifiek-Kroatische letters noemen'. Het is belangrijk dat je ze onthoudt: alle letters met een diactitisch teken, de c, de j en de combinaties dž, lj en nj.

Merk op dat deze tekens in het Kroatisch als afzonderlijke letters beschouwd worden. In een woordenboek vind je de woorden met č na de woorden met c en vóór de woorden met ć.

In de Servische variant van de taal, die in het Cyrillisch alfabet geschreven wordt, hebben deze letters zelfs afzonderlijke tekens. Bijvoorbeeld: c = ц, č = ч, ć = ћ.

Het Kroatisch alfabet is:

a b c č ć d dž đ e f g h i j k l lj m n nj o p r s š t u v z ž

Bovendien gedragen de specifiek-Kroatische letters zich in de grammatica soms wat speciaal, we zullen dat gaandeweg ontdekken. Belangrijk is dat je weet wat we met 'specifiek-Kroatische letters' bedoelen.

Croatian vowels are quite different than English vowels: they should be pronounced as Spanish or Italian vowels, as rather ‘flat’. Vowels can be either long or short (similar to English fit vs. feet) but in some cities (notably, Zagreb, Rijeka and Pula) that distinction is lost.

Here are some Croatian words to illustrate pronunciation. Press  ▶  to listen to them pronounced by a native Croatian speaker:

čaša  ▶  glass džep  ▶  pocket jež  ▶  hedgehog ljudi  ▶  people

noć  ▶  night svinja  ▶  pig vođa  ▶  leader zec  ▶  rabbit

You can hear that the vowel o in noć is pronounced longer in clips above (compare it with vođa), as is e in jež and zec (compare it with džep). The same goes for the first vowels in ljudi and svinja. Many people (including myself) don’t pronounce such differences.

Therefore, I have decided not to mark long vowels, as it would be too complicated for beginners: the rules are really complex and not respected in real life in many parts of Croatia anyway.

Also, most people in Croatia pronounce today ć the same as č, and dž the same as đ. This feature includes most cities.

In the Standard pronunciation of č and dž, the tip of tongue is pressed against the palate (top of the mouth) right above teeth, the teeth are separated, and there’s a gap between lips and teeth; it’s called apical pronunciation.

There’s a vowel ə (pronounced as e in English the) that’s never spelled; it appears in the following situations:

1. in seemingly impossible words like čvrst  ▶  rigid, hard and krv  ▶  blood: they can be approximately pronounced with the vowel ə (at least by some Croatian speakers) as čvərst and kərv. Actually, krv is pronounced a bit like English curve.

2. the same goes for e.g. bicikl  ▶  bicycle, which is rather pronounced as bi-ci-kəl (three syllables).

3. when talking about letters, Croatians often talk about the letter "b", and pronounce its ‘name’ as bə.

Although words should be pronounced as spelled, a great majority of Croatians pronounce the sequence ije (when not at the end of the word) as just je, for example:

lijepo  ▶  beautifully is usually pronounced as lje-po

prije  ▶  before is pronounced as written (pri-je), since the ije comes at the very end

Some people pronounce lijepo as l-j-e-p-o (that is, l and j are separate sounds; this is regarded as standard), others as lj-e-p-o. To help you with the pronunciation, I’ve marked such normally written, but not pronounced i’s like this: lijepo. In the words like prije, where all vowels are normally pronounced, nothing is marked.

There are very few other situations where something is written but not pronounced in Croatian, they will be specially emphasized.

Croatian spells the foreign names and places how they are originally spelled, if the original spelling uses the Latin script (e.g. New York, Chuck Norris), while in sometimes in Bosnian, and as the rule in Serbian, respelling according to an approximate pronunciation is used (Njujork, Čak Noris).

Stress (pronouncing one syllable a bit louder, as in English together) has quite complex rules and varies in colloquial speech in different parts of Croatia. Stress is never indicated in writing (similar to the practice in English, but unlike Spanish or Italian), and you are simply supposed to know it.

There are two common ways (or schemes) heard in speech of stressing words:

The standard stress is used in the Standard Croatian, and in cities of Split, Osijek, Dubrovnik, and surrounding countryside, the area where it’s used extends to Bosnia, and most of Serbia. This is what you hear on the Croatian Public Radio and TV (this is the pronunciation you will find in language manuals and good dictionaries).

Furthermore, the Standard Croatian has two kinds of stress (ways that one syllable in the word can be stressed): with the rising tone and the falling tone. It’s a bit similar to tones in Swedish or even Chinese. The stress in the Standard Croatian is virtually identical to stress in the Standard Serbian or Bosnian, but many people in Croatia don’t use standard stress in everyday communication. Furthermore, rules governing standard stress are very complex (the stress changes in various forms of one word) so I think it would be too complex to introduce tones in a course intended for beginners (I will describe details later, in the section on stress).

Therefore, I decided just to mark what vowel is stressed, when the stress is not on the first syllable (that’s the default place of stress).

The ‘western stress’ is used colloquially, very often heard in Zagreb, surrounding areas and some other cities, including Rijeka and Pula. You can hear it on local radio stations. This is the pronunciation I personally use in everyday life, at work, in school, etc. (It’s sometimes, confusingly, called ‘urban stress’; you will find virtually nothing about it in textbooks.)

There are more stress schemes and ways to pronounce words in various dialects, but they are more or less limited to small areas and villages. They will be briefly described in the section on dialects. This map shows roughly (the shaded area) where the standard stress scheme (or something quite similar to it) prevails in Croatia and neighboring countries, at least in public settings:

I won’t describe the stress schemes used in unshaded areas of Serbia and Montenegro. For some words, they are a bit similar to the ‘western’ stress, for others quite different.

I will also mark the stressed vowel in the ‘western’ stress, when it’s different from the standard stress position. For many words, there’s little or no difference, and for others, there’s an obvious difference, as demonstrated with words ponekad sometimes and kolač cake (I have underlined the stressed vowels):

word	Standard	‘western’
ponekad	ponekad  ▶	ponekad  ▶
kolač	kolač  ▶	kolač  ▶

As you can see, some people pronounce the words ponekad and kolač with the stress on the first syllable, and some others with the stress on the second syllable. You would never know it from the normal spelling, since stress is normally not marked.

Therefore, I marked the word ponekad and similar ones with two stress positions (that is, I have underlined two vowels). The first mark (from left) is always the Standard position and the second mark (if indicated) the ‘western’ stress position.

			the first mark (if present):   Standard stress
						the second mark (if present):   ‘western’ stress
p	o		n	e		kad

The word kolač and many others are marked in the same way. (Such markings are my invention. There are also standard stress symbols, but they are quite complicated and used only in specialized books. You can find more in Wikipedia and elsewhere.)

Bear in mind, if nothing is marked, the word is stressed on the first syllable. If there’s only one mark, practically everyone pronounces the stress on the same syllable.

There are a few words where the Standard stress is not on the first syllable, but the ‘western’ stress is; one of them is the word for binoculars:

Standard: dalekozor ‘western’: dalekozor

=   dalekozorʷ¹

For such words, I’ll underscore the standard stress position, and write in small superscript letters ‘W1’ after the word (i.e. ‘western’ stress on the 1st syllable), as shown above.

There are only couple of words that differ only by their stress, for example:

frizer freezer
frizer hairdresser

(Again, pay attention that both marks, for stress, and for i’s usually not pronounced are just my inventions: nobody uses them in writing.)

Through this small ‘course’ there will be here and there sound clips with pronunciation of selected words and sentences. When pronunciation varies, the sound clips will be marked like this:

S▶	play a clip with the Standard pronunciation
W▶	play a clip with the ‘western’ pronunciation

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