Croatian accents

To communicate clearly in Croatian, it is important to know both the correct pronunciation and intonation of the words and sentences you are using. You can read our blog post on basic Croatian pronunciation here.

As with any language, the best way to learn the correct pronunciation and intonation is to listen to native speakers speaking. You can search the internet and find plenty of videos in Croatian and made by Croatians, or movies for you or your children.

In the meantime, here are some rules to help you understand the basics!

Types of accent

Each vowel can be either kratak (short) or dug (long) and there are two types of stress, uzlazni (rising) and silazni (falling). The accent is a combination of length and stress. Because of this, there are four standard types of accents in the Croatian language: short falling, short rising, long falling and long raising.

Generally, these accents aren’t marked when writing Croatian, but in this post we will use the markings explicitly to help depict the difference between them:

Examples of different accents

  

Five basic rules on word accentuation

A word can have only one type of accent. This is applicable even to very long words such as otorinolaringològija (otorhinolaryngology) or prijestolonásljednik (heir to the throne).

Single-syllable words always have falling accents, either long or short.

moć (power) → mȏć → long falling

mač (sword) → mȁč → short falling

trg (square) → tȑg → short falling

stol (table) → stȏl → long falling

If the accent is on the first syllable, it can be any of the four accents.

žena (woman) → žèna → short rising

kuća (house) → kȕća → short falling

baka (grandma) → báka → long rising

meso (meat) → mȇso → long falling

If the accent is on an inner syllable (i.e. any syllable apart from the first or the last), it can only be a rising accent.

razmišljati (to think) → razmíšljati → long rising

inteligentan (intelligent) → inteligèntan → short rising

prijestolonasljednik (heir to the thorne) → prijestolonásljednik → long rising

otorinolaringologija (otorhinolaryngology) → otorinolaringològija → short rising

There is never an accent on the last syllable, with the exception of a few exclamations such as ohȏ (an exclamation expressing surprise).