Your Name Rebecca Hill
Language of Investigation:
Croatian
What places of origin (countries, regions, cities) is this language primarily spoken? Primarily,
Croatian is spoken in Croatia and sections of Bosnia and Hercegovina.
These closest / most similar languages to this language are Serbian and Bosnian.
How many speakers are there globally of this language? There are roughly 6 million Croatian
speakers worldwide.
Alphabet
This language has a Latin alphabet.
This language reads left to right then top to bottom (just like English).
The letters/ characters of this alphabet are of the Slavic branch of Indo-European language family
Does this language depend primarily on tone or pitch? Yes
Is this language syllable or stress timed? syllable
Does this language have strong sound/symbol correspondence? (English does not) Yes
Complete this section ONLY if your language is Latin based (most languages you will encounter are).
Phonetics and phonology
There are five vowels in this language. They are (cut and paste the vowels in the actual script) (A, a),
(E, e), (I, i), (O, o), (U, u). Which vowels sound the same as English vowel sounds? (list L1 vowel and
English vowel correspondence).

a = /ah/ sounds like /a/ in father or sofa

e = /eh/ sounds like /e/ in get or met

i = /ee/ sounds like /e/ in meet or feet

o= /ah/ sounds like /o/ in dog or /au/ in autumn

u = /oo/ sounds like /o/ in food or boot
Which vowel sounds do not exist in English? None, they all exist in English, but may be associated
with different graphemes.
There are 25 consonants in this language. They are (cut and paste the consonants of the actual
script)
B b, C c, Č č, Ć ć, D d, Dž dž, Đ đ, F f. G g, H h, J j, K k, L l. Lj lj, M m, N n, Nj nj, P p, R r, S s, Š š, T
t, V v, Z z, Ž ž.
Which consonant sounds do NOT exist in English? dž, nj, z, ž.
Linguistic Analysis – Croatian
Rebecca Hill
What sounds do speakers of this language have difficulty pronouncing? Croatian English language
learners have difficulty articulating the following phonemes:
How to help fix the problem
English Sound
Common Error
Relax the mouth and keep sound short.
/ɪ/
"sit"
/i:/
"seat"
Move tongue to a lower front position.
/æ/
"man"
/e/
"men"
Tongue more central. Lips relaxed.
/ʌ/
"cup"
/æ/
"cap"
Mouth not so large. Lips relaxed.
/ʌ/
"cut"
/ɑ:/
"cart"
Tongue low central. Lips relaxed.
/ʌ/
"bud"
/ɜ/
"bird"
Back of tongue high. Lips rounded but relaxed. Short.
/ʊ/
"full"
/u:/
"fool"
Tongue low & back. Jaws together. Long.
/ɔ:/
"nought"
/ɒ/
"not"
Increase mouth opening. Drop front of tongue.
/ɔ:/
"call"
/u:/
"cool"
Move tongue back and make mouth rounder.
/ɔ:/
"saw"
/ɜ:/
"Sir"
Tongue low, back & fixed. Jaws together.
/ɔ:/
"bought"
/əʊ/
"boat"
Tongue high and front. Move to centre.
/ɪə/
"beer"
/i:/
"be"
Voiceless. Friction. Tongue between teeth.
/θ/
"thin"
/t/
"tin"
Voiced. Friction. Tongue between teeth.
/ð/
"they"
/d/
"day"
Quickly push air from throat out of mouth.
/h/
"hot"
Back of tongue to back roof. Nasal.
/ŋk/ "think"
English "r" is weaker & usually silent unless followed by a vowel.
Start with lips tightly rounded. Unround & glide.
"ch" in "loch"
silent "survivor"
/w/
"west"
/ŋ/
"thing"
/r/
"Sir Ivor"
/v/
"vest"
Source: Ted Power English Language Learner and Teaching
Are there any sound placements that are different between English and this language? What are
they?
Croatian Alphabet
English Alphabet
Pronunciation
As in English word
C
C
cats
J
J
year
Source: Croatian genealogy & family history
Do any double letter combinations exist in this language? What are they and what do they correspond
to in English? (For example, Spanish: /ll/ = English /y/).
Croatian Alphabet
English Alphabet
Pronunciation
DŽ
G
gin
LJ
llion
million
NJ
ni
onion
Source: Croatian genealogy & family history
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As in English word
Linguistic Analysis – Croatian
Rebecca Hill
Syntax and Grammar
How many tenses exist in this language? Seven
What are they?
Tense
Example
Pluskvamperfekt
(Pluperfect)
An action that has happened before
another action (same as English past
perfect).
Mladen je bio ručao. (Mladen had had
lunch.)
Imperfekt (Imperfect)
Past tense that is formed only by
imperfective verbs. An unfinished past
tense.
Mladen trčaše. (Mladen was running.)
Aorist
Past tense (not used much nowadays). It Mladen odtrčaše. (Mladen was
is the same as Perfekt. Can be formed
running but he finished sometime in
only with verbs in perfective states.
the past.)
Perfekt (Perfect)
Main past tense. Can be formed by both
imperfective and perfective verbs.
Mladen je trčao. (Mladen was
running).
Prezent (Present)
Present tense.
Mladen ruča. (Mladen is having
lunch.)
PAST
PRESENT
FUTURE
Description
Futur prvi (First future) Future tense.
Mladen će ručati. (Mladen will have
lunch.)
Futur drugi (Second
future)
Ako bude kiša uskoro pala, suša će
prestati. (If rain soon falls, the drought
will end.)
Before-future tense. Used in expresing a
future action that will happen before
another future action.
Source: Learn Croatian – grammatical tenses
The word order of this language is subject, verb, object (SVO)
What are the punctuation forms used in this language? List using English comparisons.
Croatian
English
period (.)
period (.)
exclamation mark (!)
exclamation mark (!)
question mark (?)
question mark (?)
comma (,)
comma (,)
semicolon (;)
semicolon (;)
colon (:)
colon (:)
suspension points (…)
suspension points (…)
parenthesis ()
parenthesis ()
dash or hyphen (-)
dash or hyphen (-)
apostrophe (')
apostrophe (')
quotation marks („…“)
quotation marks (“…”)
quotation marks (»…«)
quotation marks (“…”)
Source: Croatian style guide and TranslationDictionary.com
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Linguistic Analysis – Croatian
Rebecca Hill
How does this language mark gender?



Feminine nouns end in the letter /a/
Neutral nouns end in /o/ and /e/
Almost all of the remainder are masculine with a few feminine exceptions
Morphology
What are some shared cognates between English and this language?
English
intelligent
ocean
telephone
study
theater
museum
Croatian
inteligentan
ocean
telefonirati
studirati
teatar
muzej
What are some FALSE cognates between English and this language?
English
preservative
list
divan (long sofa)
plot
Croatian
prezervativ
list
divan
plot
Actual translation
condom
leaf
adorable
fence
Through your research what have you found are the biggest difficulties of speakers of this language
learning English? Please provide specific examples.
I believe the biggest problem for ELL’s with an L1 of Croatian would in the area of phonics. The
Croatian language has a strong sound/symbol correspondence and English does not. I don’t believe
that Croatians will have too much difficulty producing the actual phonemes themselves, but they
would be challenged because some sounds that correspond with the letters have subtle differences,
for example when they see the word ‘man’ they may tend to say ‘men’; another example would be the
‘full’ mistakenly pronounced ‘fool’.
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Linguistic Analysis – Croatian
Rebecca Hill
If you have an early production ELL who this language is their L1, what would be the most important
thing you will teach them in regards to the difference between their language and English?
When working with a Croatian ELL I would focus on phonemic and phonological awareness. I would
spend time helping them to hear and identify the subtle sound differences, particularly with vowel
sounds. Specifically I would work with them using contrasting lists of words, for example if they had
difficulty distinguishing between the /æ/ sound and the /e/ sound I might use the following list:
/æ/ sound
/e/ sound
Men
man
better
batter
peddle
paddle
said
sad
letter
latter
dead
dad
pet
pat
Send
sand
bend
band
lend
land
kettle
cattle
set
sat
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