Learn Croatian Online – The Ultimate Guide For English Speakers

When did the Croatian language begin? Was it during the Bronze Age, as the future fruit of the Balto-Slavic branch of the Indo-European languages tree?

Or was the Croatian language really born after the breakup of Yugoslavia?

The answer, tantalizingly, is both.

If you already know how you want to study Croatian and want to read our recommendations and reviews, check out these posts:

• Best Apps to Learn Croatian – Guide to Apps, Courses, and other Resources
• 45+ Croatian Resources – Mostly Free & For All Levels
• The Language Exchange Showdown: Our Top Apps & Websites

• The Best Language Learning Apps – We’ve Tested 40+ Options
• Most Spoken Languages In Asia: Plus Useful Language Resources
• Most Spoken Languages In The World: Plus Language Resources For The Top 35 Languages

Learn Croatian with our ultimate guide for English speakers. Explore the Croatian alphabet, grammar, vocabulary, and effective learning strategies.

A Little About the Croatian Language

Croatian is a standardized form of Serbo-Croatian. It comes from the Eastern-Herzegovinian dialect, called Shtokavian (a/k/a Štokavian or Stokavian). It’s the most-used dialect of the Serbo-Croatian pluricentric language.

The Croatian language, known as hrvatski, is tied to the Croat ethnic group, who hail from the South Slavic countries. Croatian is one of the official languages of the European Union, with about five to seven million speakers worldwide.

Croatian is the official language of:

●       Croatia
●       Vojvodina, an autonomous province in northern Serbia
●       Bosnia and Herzegovina
●       Burgenland, a sparsely populated state in Austria

Thanks to the second wave of the Croatian Diaspora, Croatian has minority language status in the following places:

●       Italy
●       Montenegro
●       Baranya County in Hungary
●       Czech Republic
●       Slovakia
●       Caraş-Severin County in Romania

In addition to several countries and territories in Eastern Europe, it’s also spoken in South America, Canada, the United States, South Africa, and Australia. This is not too surprising since there are about as many Croatians living outside of their homeland as there are within its borders.

6 Fascinating Facts About Croatian

1. One Language, Multiple Standards
   Croatian, Serbian, and Bosnian share a common linguistic root called Serbo-Croatian. However, each has developed its own vocabulary, pronunciation, and cultural identity. For instance, Croatian uses the Latin alphabet, while Serbian often uses Cyrillic, reflecting their distinct paths.
2. Rich Vocabulary for a Vibrant Culture
   Croatian’s vocabulary reflects the country’s history and geography. Coastal influences bring in Italian-inspired words like palačinka (pancake), while inland areas preserve more Slavic traditions. This blend creates a linguistic map of Croatia’s rich past.
3. Distinct Dialects
   Croatian is divided into three main dialects: Štokavian, Kajkavian, and Čakavian, named after the word for “what” (što, kaj, and ča). Standard Croatian is based on Štokavian, but exploring the other dialects reveals the country’s incredible regional diversity.
4. A Language of Connection
   While Croatian is unique, it’s mutually intelligible with Serbian, Bosnian, and Montenegrin. Learning Croatian allows you to communicate across the Western Balkans, a region brimming with history and culture.
5. Pronunciation That’s Clear and Logical
   Croatian is phonetic, meaning words are pronounced exactly as they’re written. This simplicity makes it easier to learn compared to languages with irregular spelling, like English.
6. A Window into Croatia’s Heritage
   From the traditional klapa music of Dalmatia to the works of renowned writers like Miroslav Krleža, Croatian is deeply tied to the country’s artistic and cultural legacy. Speaking the language allows you to immerse yourself in this vibrant world.

Croatian and Other Slavic Languages

Croatian bears a strong resemblance to other Slavic languages — even ones from different branches of the Slavic language tree. For example, in this experiment, a native Croatian speaker and a native Russian speaker tried to guess the meaning of words from their respective languages … with a fairly high degree of accuracy. Russian is an East Slavic language and Croatian is South Slavic. Yet, even after hundreds of years of divergence from a common root, the connection is still there.

The Croatian Language and Its Balkan Neighbors

Dig into the linguistic classification of Croatian, and its relationship to other Balkan languages — especially Serbian — and you’ll find yourself in a morass of multifaceted, passionate disputes. The Croatian language discussion archives on Wikipedia alone are only the tip of the iceberg.

The Croatian language is an integral part of Croatian national identity. Its modern history stretches back hundreds of years and is intertwined with the history of neighboring Balkan states.

Take even a brief glimpse into the ongoing geopolitical conflicts between Croatia and Serbia, and you’ll get a taste of the fiercely nationalistic viewpoints that insist on labeling Croatian, Serbian, and Bosnia as three entirely separate languages … even though many sociolinguists don’t see it that way.

Robert Lindsay, a linguistic researcher from California State University, wrote an academic paper entitled “Mutual Intelligibility of Languages in the Slavic Family.” Lindsay found that oral Croatian and Serbian could be mutually understood up to 97% of the time. Lindsay also found high intelligibility (especially in the written language) between Serbo-Croatian and Macedonian.

Language and National Identity

Nationalism and linguistic identity are often tied together. For hundreds of years, languages have been suppressed in efforts to thwart nationalism, as clearly seen in the case of Welsh and Irish Gaelic.

Thus, it’s not surprising that what used to be called the Serbo-Croatian language has now been divided into the Serbian and Croatian languages, in the midst of efforts to reinforce the respective national identities of their speakers.

Serbian and Croatian Languages: Similarities and Differences

Michael from The Polyglot Files posits that the perception of the Serbian and Croatian languages as different from each other, rather than just two standards of the same language, is largely geopolitical and influenced by the nationalism of each respective country.

Similarly, the Serbian Mapping channel on YouTube — run by a native of Bosnia — goes so far as to state that Croatian, Bosnian, and Serbian are simply three parts of the same linguistic whole, despite the sociopolitical differences.

Consider American and British English, which are two different standard forms of the English language. There are some differences, to be sure. Yet native speakers of each version can fairly easily understand each other, even though the languages have changed somewhat since the upstart American colonists declared their independence from the Crown way back in 1776.

There are, indeed, some practical differences between Serbian and Croatian, just like there are between American and British English. Still, Croatian and Serbian share their grammatical structures and the majority of their vocabulary. In fact, you can still find Serbo-Croatian dictionaries online. It’s probably best to think of them linguistically as two different standards of the same language.

Writing Systems

One way in which Serbian and Croatian differ linguistically is in their writing systems. Croatian is written in a variation of the Latin alphabet which makes it accessible for learners familiar with English or other Western European languages.. Serbian uses the same version of the Latin alphabet, but it can also be written in Serbian Cyrillic.

Croatian Alphabet:

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

What Makes It Unique:

• Č, Ć, Š, Ž: Represent soft “ch,” “ts,” “sh,” and “zh” sounds, respectively.
• Dž, Lj, Nj: These are digraphs, treated as single letters, representing combined sounds.
• Phonetic Simplicity: Each letter corresponds to one sound, making Croatian pronunciation straightforward.

Vocabulary Differences

While Croatian shares many words with Serbian and Bosnian, it also has unique terms influenced by its proximity to Italy and Central Europe. For example:

• Croatian: zrakoplov (airplane)
• Serbian: avion (airplane)

Cultural Identity

Croatian emphasizes preserving its linguistic identity, especially in terms of vocabulary. While Bosnian and Serbian may use loanwords more freely, Croatian often prefers native or adapted terms.

Dialects and Pronunciation

Croatian’s regional dialects—Čakavian, Kajkavian, and Štokavian—offer unique twists on pronunciation and vocabulary, setting it apart from its neighbors.

Grammar Similarities

Croatian grammar shares features with other Slavic languages, like cases and gendered nouns. However, its clear and consistent spelling makes learning Croatian less daunting than tackling Russian or Polish.

Why Learning Croatian is Your Next Cultural Adventure

When I first heard Croatian, I was struck by its rhythm—it’s crisp yet flowing, bold yet inviting. Spoken by around 5 million people, mostly in Croatia, this language is a gateway to one of Europe’s most beautiful and culturally rich regions. It’s more than just a language—it’s a way to connect with the stunning Adriatic coastline, the warmth of its people, and a history that’s both deep and diverse.

For someone who adores history, languages, and food, Croatian offers a feast for the curious mind. It’s part of the South Slavic language family, alongside Serbian, Bosnian, and Slovenian. While it shares similarities with these languages, Croatian is unique in its identity, pronunciation, and cultural expressions. Learning Croatian has been like uncovering a mosaic of traditions and stories, each piece more fascinating than the last.

How to Learn Croatian for English Speakers

While Croatian, like all languages, has its special challenges for learners, certain qualities make it a little bit easier to learn for English speakers.

One of these is the aforementioned Croatian alphabet, which is fairly similar to the one used in English … with the exception of a few letters.

We’ll get more into the Croatian alphabet in a little bit. For now, since you’re learning Croatian and not Serbian, you can heave a sigh of relief that you don’t have to learn the Cyrillic alphabet.

Croatian is fairly phonetic. Unlike English or French, Croatian has no silent letters — so you won’t have to remember which letters not to pronounce.

In English, there are some complicated letter combinations that get produced in odd and sometimes contradictory ways. (Imagine trying to explain to a non-native English speaker why “though,” “thought,” and “through” are all pronounced differently, even though they are spelled practically the same!) On the other hand, once you learn how to pronounce each letter in Croatian, what you see is what you get.

The sounds made by the same letters in different Croatian words don’t change, no matter where those letters appear in a given word. For instance, the letter e in zovem (I call) is pronounced the same as the letter e in se (myself). Both of them are said similarly to “eh” in English.

And speaking of se, this reflexive Croatian pronoun is actually easier than reflexive pronouns in English. Why? Because the reflexive pronoun dynamo known as se means all of the following:

●       myself
●       yourself
●       oneself
●       himself
●       herself
●       themselves
●       each other
●       one another

With any reflexive you could want covered in a single syllable, there’s still a catch: You’ll need to make sure that the verb form matches the subject pronoun. So, for instance, you might say, “Zovem se Adrijan,” (“I call myself Adrian,” or “My name is Adrian”) — but, when introducing a friend, you would have to say, “Ona se zove Vlatka,” (“She is called Vlatka.”)

Pitch Accent

Croatian isn’t tonal like Chinese, but it has a bit of a lilting or sing-song quality to its speech, thanks to a quality called “pitch accent.”

In English, we primarily tend to use stress accent: We pronounce one or more syllables of a word more forcefully than others. In the case of certain words, changing the syllable receiving the stress changes the word’s meaning —often, transforming nouns into verbs, or vice versa. For example:

You can object to an object that you suspect is suspect, then get a permit to permit you to desert it in the desert.

Spanish and Italian also have stress accent, also known as lexical stress. This gives them their own syncopated rhythms. French, by way of contrast, lacks lexical stress; each syllable is evenly stressed.

Standard Croatian employs both lexical stress and pitch accent, as well as long and short vowels. The stress accent almost never falls on the last syllable; it’s often on the first syllable. There are only two pitch accents: rising and falling. These occur in combination with long and short vowel sounds.

Lexical stress, pitch accent, and vowel length differ from one region to another, making local various accents easily recognizable to native speakers. To simplify matters for learners of Croatian, these lexical and pitch accent changes are not written. All dialects use the same spelling, including diacritical marks.

The Learn Croatian blog introduces the rising and falling accents used in Croatian. Good-quality sound clips demonstrate changes of pitch in various examples.

The table of words marked “Examples of different accents” is particularly helpful. To hear the differences between long and short vowels, listen to a short vowel/falling accent word immediately followed by a long vowel/falling accent word. Then try comparing the rising and falling accent words with short or long vowels. (The rising and falling pitches seem easier to distinguish on the long vowels.)

Finally, try clicking randomly on sound clips within the “Examples of different accents” table to hear and identify the different combinations. This will help you to hear the stress accents, as well.

The Basic Croatian site has an even more detailed article about pitch accent in Croatian, which lacks the sound clips but launches into thorough explanations of grammar (including declensions and prepositions), fixed stress and falling-rising stress in Standard Croatian, and regional differences in both pitch and lexical stress.

The Croatian Alphabet

The Croatian alphabet is very similar to the Latin alphabet used by English speakers. Croatian — along with several other Balkan tongues — uses a variation on the Latin alphabet that was created primarily by a 19th-century Croatian linguist named Ljudevit Gaj.

When he was devising his own version of the Latin alphabet to represent spoken Croatian in a standardized way, Gaj looked to the Czech and Polish alphabets for inspiration.

If you’re a native native speaker of English — or another language that uses a Latin alphabet — learning Croatian won’t mean memorizing a different writing system. However, there are a few essential differences between the English-language alphabet and the Croatian one, as Croatian genealogist Lidija Sambunjak explains in her article, “Eight Croatian Letters that English Doesn’t Recognize.”

To the standard Latin alphabet, Gaj added the nj, lj and dž. These are heterogeneous consonant digraphs — a combination of two different letters that function phonetically as a single sound.

Quickly check out these consonant digraphs in English, which I’ve boldfaced and underlined to show you how frequently they creep into standard English writing.

In Croatian, unlike English, nj, lj and dž are not just recognized digraphs — they’re each considered separate letters of the Croatian alphabet. But these digraphs are not the only special letters Croatian learners must digest.

Just like n and ñ are two distinct letters in the Spanish alphabet, č, ć, and c are all discrete letters in the Croatian alphabet. To this native anglophone’s ears, the difference between č and ć is very subtle, and will require patience and much careful listening to master. According to the Balk Talk channel on YouTube, “Č requires the tongue to touch the roof of the mouth while Ć requires the tongue to stay centered and the sides lightly touching the bottom row of your teeth.”

And it doesn’t end with the three kinds of Croatian Cs. There are also three variations on the letter d in Croatian (d, dž, and đ), a set of S letters (s and š), and the dynamic duo of z and ž.

This article from the Learn Croatian blog breaks down some of the trickier letters in Croatian in even more detail, with example words and audio files so you can learn the proper pronunciation.

Practicing the Croatian Alphabet

Since the Croatian alphabet is based on the Latin one, it should not present too much difficulty for English speakers. It’s certainly worth practicing its sounds and special letters, though.

The Learn 101 website hosts a Croatian alphabet section, with written and spoken pronunciation examples for each letter. There’s also an International Phonetic Alphabet equivalent listed for each letter in the chart — so, if you’re already conversant with the IPA, this can be a quick way for you to grasp the pronunciation of the Croatian letters.

There are a few YouTube videos with pronunciation tips for the Croatian alphabet. The aforementioned Balk Talk channel has a video entitled “Croatian Alphabet + Pronunciation Hacks for Beginners!” Along with numerous pronunciation hacks for those special Croatian letters such as lj and dž, the video repeatedly reassures learners that native speakers will be able to understand them by context clues, even if they can’t quite get the hang of the finer points of pronunciation.

The Croatian ALPHABET (Pronunciation) video from Jenama Amo takes time to explain a bit more certain letters. For instance, dž is ordinarily used to spell loanwords in Croatian. Lj Croatian is like the lyuh sound in the middle of the English word “million”; nj in Croatian is like the nyuh sound produced by the ñ in niño (boy) or the gn in lasagna. This video also uses colorful cartoon drawings to illustrate example words for each letter of the Croatian alphabet.

For more interactive practice, try the Croatian Alphabet course on Memrise. It comes with full audio, and quizzes you on the letters and their sounds. Your answers will be a combination of multiple-choice and fill-in-the-blanks. With example words for each letter of the Croatian alphabet, you’ll pick up some basic vocabulary as you’re learning the letters.

Typing in Croatian

Instead of learning unicode or copying and pasting characters from a resource like the Windows Character Map, the fastest and easiest way to type Croatian text on a QWERTY keyboard is to use a virtual online keyboard. You can just type into the text editor on screen, selecting the special Croatian characters as needed.

The Branah Croatian keyboard is set up to allow you to type letters such as š or đ simply by pressing the corresponding keys on your physical keyboard. You’ll see an onscreen “keyboard map” that will show you, in red (for lowercase) or blue (for uppercase) the Croatian letters that map to your keyboard keys. Press the Escape key on the virtual keyboard to toggle between the English and Croatian alphabets:

The Lexilogos Croatian keyboard is set up differently than the one on Branah.com. Rather than a full keyboard, Lexilogos gives you buttons for each of the special characters — plus an array of letters “for learning Croatian,” which seems to have symbols for the different pitch accents we discussed earlier.

To type the special Croatian characters directly from your physical keyboard, you’ll use a combination of the base letter (c or d, for example) followed by one or two equals signs. For instance, to produce đ with the Lexilogos keyboard, you’d type d= on your physical keyboard.

There are numerous virtual Croatian keyboard apps for mobile devices, whether you use an Android device or an iOS phone or tablet.

Basic Croatian Phrases for Beginners

Start your Croatian journey with these essential phrases:

• Bok! – Hi! (informal)
• Kako si? – How are you?
• Hvala! – Thank you
• Molim – Please / You’re welcome
• Oprostite – Excuse me / Sorry
• Da / Ne – Yes / No
• Kako se zoveš? – What’s your name?
• Zovem se… – My name is…
• Gdje je WC? – Where is the restroom?
• Vidimo se! – See you!

Challenges of Learning Croatian

Learning Croatian is deeply rewarding but comes with a few challenges:

• Complex Grammar: Like many Slavic languages, Croatian has a case system, which can be tricky for beginners to grasp.
• Dialects: Regional differences in vocabulary and pronunciation can add complexity but also make learning more exciting.
• Unique Sounds: Mastering sounds like Č and Lj may take time but adds to the language’s charm.
• Limited Resources: Compared to major world languages, Croatian has fewer learning materials available, so connecting with native speakers or online communities is essential.

Croatian Language Resources

Apps to learn Croatian

Apps make it easy to study Croatian at your own pace anytime, anywhere. These Croatian language learning apps use interactive lessons and exercises and some take a gamified approach to help you learn grammar, vocabulary, and pronunciation.

Drops App

Drops is a phone app for iPhone and Android that covers 50 languages. Daily games test the user on thousands of vocabulary words, and many of these words are ideal for everyday use. Drops has an entertaining, user-friendly interface, but it also lacks grammar lessons, and it works better for some languages than others. For anyone looking to supplement their vocab lessons, this app is worth considering; however, the free version might be more worthwhile than the paid version.

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Clozemaster

Ideal for people who are already at an upper beginner/intermediate level, Clozemaster will help you build your vocabulary and learn new words and sentences in context. While you won’t learn much grammar or improve your speaking and writing much, it is great at what it does and the videogame aspect makes it fun and addictive to work though. Although the exercises are all pretty much identical, there are various ways in which you can increase the difficulty and Clozemaster’s free account is almost as good as the Pro User one.

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Ling

Ling is a gamified language-learning app with courses on over 60 different languages. Practice happens through short themed lessons, making for convenient and entertaining study time. It isn’t the most comprehensive resource out there, especially for more popular languages, but it can make a decent way to get started with a less common language.

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Anki

It is the go-to app for free (except on iOS) Spaced Repetition System (SRS) flashcards. It has a simple user interface with various features that more hard-core users can dive into if they choose. Your flashcards will appear according to your natural forgetting curve; the app will test you in increasingly spaced out intervals, with more difficult cards appearing more than once in a session, while easier cards spacing out over weeks — or even months and years. An SRS system is the most effective way to drive information into your long-term memory. The cards can sync between the web, desktop app, and mobile versions to keep your flashcards updated and with you at all times. 

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uTalk

uTalk is a software program and mobile app offering learning material in over 140 languages. Its approach is based on learning keywords and phrases through gameplay. It covers a wide range of phrases, each spoken by a female and male native speaker, consequently offering listening and pronunciation practice. uTalk is most useful for beginners who want to get started in a language by learning key phrases. It could also be useful for intermediates looking to fill gaps in their vocabulary and pronunciation, but it does not offer any in-depth language instruction or grammar explanations. It’s also worth mentioning that for some languages, such as Basque, the occasional overly literal translation leads to small errors and unnatural phrasing creeping in. However, we haven’t seen instances in which this would result in you being misunderstood, and there’s no denying uTalk’s value for languages with fewer learning resources.

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Brainscape

Brainscape is a flashcard app that uses a Spaced Repetition System, also often referred to as ‘adaptive flashcards’, to help you memorize new vocabulary and facts. It has a team of scientists, engineers, and education experts working to optimize their program for effective learning. Brainscape is quite similar to Anki, but has a more modern and colourful interface. They also have Certified Classes, which are decks that seem to have been developed by experts in the chosen topic. The app adds what they call Intelligent Cumulative Exposure (ICE) to some of their Certified Classes; it seems to combine a Spaced Repetition System with gradually introducing new concepts, increasing the difficulty of the concepts, and providing context so you can build your own sentences. It has several Certified Classes for various languages (and other topics), and many more decks created by users. Unlike Anki, edits that creators make to user decks seem to sync up even after you have downloaded the deck. With the free version, you have limited access to premium decks but unlimited access to user-made decks.

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Simply Learn

In Simply Learn, by Simya Solutions, you can search for and review over 1000 phrases in over 30 categories. It takes the typical phrasebook app one step further by allowing you to add your favorite phrases to SRS flashcards. Given that its developers also developed Ling, an additional, more comprehensive resource that supports language learning, it seems that Simply Learn is a supplementary app for individuals who need to learn basic phrases for traveling abroad.  The creators don’t seem to have intended for people to use this app to learn a language in its entirety, but rather to support them in memorizing basic phrases for travel.

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FunEasyLearn

Not only does FunEasyLearn have a slick app interface, high-quality recordings of native speakers, and a variety of activities to reinforce your learning, but it also allows you to learn from 61 mother tongues. The lessons were developed by a team of certified linguists and acting teachers; they cover reading, listening, speaking and writing. You have the choice of learning individual vocabulary or common phrases, both of which navigate between various common categories such as “Describing people”, “General Conversation”, “ and “Transport”. Ultimately, FunEasyLearn is a fun and easy way to develop some basic vocabulary, but it is probably not the most effective resource for hard-core language learners; you will need to use another resource if you want to learn more than basic vocabulary words.

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Loecsen

Loecsen is a web based platform designed to make learning languages feel natural by offering immersive, bite-sized language courses that anyone can master. There are over 40 languages to learn including Arabic, English, French among others. It started out as an essential conversation guide for short stays abroad, but soon evolved to offer more comprehensive language courses. Loecsen’s strengths are its nice visual aids to stimulate interest and encourage revision. It also uses clear, high-quality audio recordings and a voice recognition feature to help you practice and improve your pronunciation skills. By combining visual aids with clear audio pronunciation, Loecsen encourages you pick up the language naturally, just as you would through interaction with native speakers.

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Croatian Courses

Croatian courses provide a comprehensive learning experience covering several aspects of the language to take you from beginner to advanced levels. Lessons are usually very detailed and often include interactive activities for real-world practice.

Preply

Preply is an online educational platform that matches tutors with students. There are tutors on Preply offering instruction in a wide range of languages and other subjects. As a learner, you can find a tutor that works best for you by browsing their demo videos and filtering by price and rating. Each tutor’s teaching style is their own, but they all receive teacher trainings and resources to improve their style.

Exclusive 50% discount for ALR readers! Make sure to use our link to receive it.

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italki

italki is the most flexible and affordable place to find a tutor for the language you’re learning. They have a huge number of teachers offering classes to students of over 100 different languages. As a learner, you’ll be able to find a tutor that best fits your learning style, schedule, and personality. Teachers are able to set their own prices and make their own schedule.

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Pimsleur

Pimsleur is one of the most popular and longest-standing resources out there for learning a foreign language. Its courses place a strong emphasis on aural and verbal communication skills, paying less attention to grammar explanations and reading or writing skills. There are over 50 language courses available with Pimsleur, and the bulk of the material is taught with audio lessons.

Labor Day Offer! Save up to 50% oon ALL Access Subscription. See details on the website. Offer ends 9/7/2026.

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Glossika

Glossika has learning resources for over fifty languages that impressively range from Armenian and Czech to Icelandic and Tagalog. While not suitable for absolute beginners, lower intermediates could use the resource to familiarise themselves with sentences in their language of choice using Glossika´s intuitive approach. Listening to native speakers and repeating what they say can help learners to improve their comprehension skills and spoken fluency. While it is amazing that so many languages are included, learners would have to use numerous other resources alongside it. The cost is unjustifiably high.

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Verbling

Verbling is an online language-class marketplace where you can take lessons with teachers of your choice. It has some student-friendly extra features, including a built-in online classroom, flashcards, homework calendar, and a filing system for lesson materials. There are also useful but disorganized forums where you can discuss languages, share writing for critique, and do free language drills and exercises.

The lessons are generally high quality and well structured, plus the filters make it easy to find teachers who specialize in everything from accent reduction to interview preparation. 

However, it can be slightly pricier than alternatives, so if you’re on a tight budget, you may want to look elsewhere. It also has fewer languages than some of the bigger competitors, so it might not be a good choice if you want to study Azerbaijani, Khmer, or Yoruba.

20% OFF Lesson packages! See details on the website. Ends soon!

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Mango Languages

Mango Languages is a pretty good resource with numerous languages available along with their regional variations.  It’ll work the best for beginners or for those interested in studying a few languages at the same time. Anybody past the intermediate level won’t find Mango Languages very useful.

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Mondly

Mondly is a language-learning app that teaches basic vocabulary and grammar structures. It seems most appropriate for learners with little to no exposure to their target language.

The activities mostly rely on passive recognition of vocabulary and phrases, and therefore are not very challenging. However, they are varied enough that you probably wouldn’t get bored with short, daily practice sessions.

Although I wouldn’t recommend Mondly to anyone looking to seriously learn a language, it may be appropriate for individuals studying languages with less available resources, or for individuals who are preparing to travel abroad.

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StudyCroatian

StudyCroatian is a web based resource designed to help Croatian language learners progress naturally through structured guides, interactive lessons, exercises, and progress tracking. The lessons are interactive and engaging with clear explanations, instant feedback, and audio pronunciation along with interactive exercises and tests to reinforce what you learn. You can track your progress and even earn achievements as you advance. In addition to the lessons and quizzes, practical tools are also included. You’ll have access to a 5,000+ word dictionary, verb lists, and a built-in Croatian keyboard making it easier for you to study, practice, and apply what you learn. 

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learn101

Learn 101 is almost identical to iLanguages, but neither of them seem to be very helpful; they have the same native speaker audio files, languages, and mostly identical ‘lesson’ layouts. The main differences are that Learn 101 seems to have added some grammar explanations and reformatted a bit, while iLanguages seems to have added some extra phrases. Since every one of the languages’ “lessons” has the same format, including the grammar section, you will learn how to say ‘and’, ‘but’, and ‘or’, in 107 languages, but you will not learn where these types of words fit within a specific language’s sentence structure. Although there are examples of various grammatical structures, the explanations for these structures are also identical for every language, which, practically speaking, doesn’t seem plausible. This site could be useful if you want to hear native speakers pronounce basic words in less-common languages, or if you want to look up the IPA symbols of a less-common language’s alphabet — otherwise, you’re probably better off making flashcards yourself on Anki, or trying one of the hundreds of other resources we recommend on this site.

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Live Lingua

Live Lingua is an online language school that pairs students with certified teachers for one-on-one online classes. The platform aims to provide a more personalized service than online tutor directories by assigning a personal class coordinator and a customized curriculum for each student. Lessons are available in seven different popular languages and for a variety of different courses.

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HelloTalk

HelloTalk is a mobile app for language learners interested in language exchange. It facilitates communication between native speakers and those learning their language with the use of built-in language tools. It also offers audio lessons in 10 languages as part of a separate subscription.

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Tandem

Tandem is a popular language exchange app with over one million active users. It’s available for iOS and Android and aims to bring language learners from all over the world together. It’s largely centered around its chat capabilities and language tools that facilitate communication, but there is also a tutoring service offered in the app.

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Speaky

Speaky is a social language-learning app for people interested in language exchange. It’s available for iOS, Android, and the web. Users can chat with other language learners, share photos, leave voice messages or even have voice calls. The basic features on Speaky are free to use, but access to more than five translations per day requires a subscription.

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Additional Resources for Learning Croatian

Aside from structured Croatian language courses or apps, having additional learning resources and material is always recommended. Whether as a way to know more or as reference points, supplementary resources are beneficial to help you improve and strengthen your language skills.

Croatian Blogs and Websites

These websites and blogs can give you a little extra information to guide you along as you learn Croatian through courses, apps, and other resources.

DinoLingo Blog

The DinoLingo blog, part of an online youth language-learning program, has a section devoted to Croatian language and culture. These short, simple blog posts touch briefly on numerous topics, including common Croatian words and phrases, food, music, travel, history, and etiquette.

While not a deep dive into the Croatian language, these articles can give you a little taste of the language and culture, and help you to put it into context.

Školica Croatian Language School

Školica Croatian Language School makes some freebies available to all students of Croatian. There’s an assessment test using CEFR language standards, vocabulary training by category, and interactive grammar questions.

The site also features a Learn Croatian blog, which covers both the language and the culture. Travel features such as this article on survival Croatian include audio clips for the vocab.

Forvo

Not really a Croatian website per se, but a useful resource to search for various Croatian words and hear them pronounced properly. Forvo breaks down the words and phrases by category. You can also use Forvo as an iOS or Android app, allowing you to learn on the go or consult the proper pronunciations while you travel in Zagreb and beyond.

Picture Dictionaries and Basic Vocab Books

If you want a very simple approach English – Croatian Bilingual First Top 624 Words Educational Activity Book for Kids might be a good choice for you. Essentially a picture dictionary, this book presents the words in seemingly random order — which might not be ideal, if you prefer a more structured or well-ordered approach to learning vocabulary.

My First Picture Dictionary is a more traditional picture dictionary, with alphabetized entries in English and Croatian. This title is also available on Amazon.

Author Marija S. brightens up the world of Croatian words with this series of My First Croatian… books, including volumes on numbers, the alphabet, communication words, household objects, clothing, health, and weather.

Transform your understanding of basic Croatian vocabulary concepts from black-and-white to color with this English Croatian Coloring Book for Kids. Treat yourself to the big box of crayons and write your new Croatian words in the blank spaces next to the pictures.

Online Croatian Dictionaries

For convenience and expediency, nothing beats a good online dictionary.

Glosbe has both a Croatian-English and English-Croatian dictionary. Click on the keyboard icon near the search box in the left sidebar to access the special Croatian characters. This dictionary identifies parts-of-speech usage, provides numerous translation choices and examples, and even differentiates between lower-case and upper-case meanings of certain words. (For example, here’s what happened when I typed “Word” into the English-Croatian dictionary.)

This simple English/Croatian dictionary has fewer examples in context than the Glosbe dictionary, but doesn’t skimp when it comes to displaying numerous terms related to even such basic words as “apple” or “book.”

Try a few different online dictionaries until you find the format you prefer.

Croatian Slang

As you learn more Croatian and start to move from the most basic resources like children’s books to Croatian newspapers and television, you’ll find yourself transitioning from the more formal language as it’s taught in school to a more complex, familiar register — one that’s enriched yet complicated by idiomatic phrases and slang.

Fortunately, there are several resources to introduce you to Croatian’s red-hot jive.

Croatia Week, an English-language website on all things Croatian presents an article that will get you up-to-speed with about twenty slang words and phrases.

The Mindful Mermaid’s “A to Ž: Croatian Phrases and Slang 2020” will make your conversational Croatian much more hip. With the sleek Pinterest posters illustrating several words and the memorable, detailed explanations, you’ll understand these colorful metaphors in their proper cultural context.

This article from Culture Trip, “15 Beautiful Croatian Phrases We Need in English,” explains some Croatian proverbs and well-known sayings.

If you’d like an extensive alphabetical listing of Croatian proverbs, with English equivalent sayings and etymological notes, check out this Wikiquote compilation.

Bilingual Books

Bilingual books can give you just the help you need when you’re taking your first steps to read in Croatian. You can cover up the English translation when you want to challenge yourself more.

Children’s picture books such as will lead you through a simple story with very basic vocabulary. The repetition inherent in children’s books will help reinforce the words you’re learning. Amazon offers a few other Croatian-English bilingual selections.

Children’s bilingual book site Language Lizard draws on literary traditions from across the world as the foundation for its bilingual book series. Journey to Ancient Egypt with Isis and Osiris by Dawn Casey or follow the further adventures of a certain crimson-cloaked girl in Kate Clynes’ Not Again, Red Riding Hood!

Croatian eBooks and Print Books

As you reach intermediate and advanced levels of Croatian learning, supplement your other language resources with books and short stories completely in Croatian.

Self-publishing platform BookRix offers a selection of Croatian ebooks in various genres, many of them available at no cost.

If you prefer print books, Australian-based Zagreb Croatian Bookshop has nonfiction, fiction, history, and reference books (dictionaries, grammar guides, etc.).

For ebooks as well as paperbacks and hardbacks, Amazon.com offers a few thousand Croatian-language choices.

Other Media Resources for Learning Croatian

When you aren’t learning Croatian in the more traditional way, how about immersing yourself in more authentic Croatian content? Croatian newspapers, magazines, social media, radio, TV, and film are all great ways to help you learn more about the language and culture.

Croatian Periodicals

Here are a handful of online Croatian newspapers to get you started:

●       Portal Hrvatskoga Kuliturnog Vijeća (Peruse this national publication of the Croatian Cultural Council.)

●       Dubrovački Dnevnik (Focus on life in the southern Croatian city of Dubrovnik, on the Adriatic Sea.)

●       Glas Istre (Hear The Voice of Istria with news from an Italian and Serbian presence, as well as a Croatian population.)

●       JutarnjiList (Get your morning news from Zagreb, with articles on current events, culture, money, technology, and lifestyle topics.)

OnlineNewspapers.com has an even more extensive list of Croatian periodicals.

If you prefer magazines to newspapers, try some of these choices:

●    Fitness.com.hr (Keep fit and get your Croatian into shape with these articles on training, exercise, weight loss, and nutrition.)

●    Zivim (Stay in style with tips for beauty, health, fitness, stress relief, and personal relationships from this Croatian women’s magazine.)

●    Macho (Fulfill your need for speed with this men’s magazine featuring articles about cars, sports, relationships, technology, and more.)

●    HCL Gaming Portal (Win at learning Croatian with this magazine devoted to the finer points of gaming systems and video gameplay.)

●    MojTV (Indulge in Croatian coverage of the small screen and the silver screen, with a sports section and some celebrity news.)

●    InDizajn (Feel fashionably at home with this slick interior design magazine.)

●    Coolinarika (Get cooking with thousands of Croatian recipes, from appetizers to desserts. Lots of short videos and step-by-step instructions to help you get started.)

You’ll probably find that there are several Croatian newspapers and magazines you enjoy. Mix up your periodical reading a bit, just to expose yourself to the language in more contexts.

Help with Croatian Periodicals

Even if you’ve been learning Croatian for a few years, chances are good that you’ll run across a few words you don’t know when you’re reading Croatian periodicals. When you read a book, it tends to focus on just a few themes or topics. When you read a newspaper or magazine, the subject matter can be much more diverse.

Readlang is a browser extension that you use in conjunction with any Croatian website, such as an online Croatian newspaper. Just hover over an unknown Croatian word to highlight it, then click on the word to get it glossed in your native language.

You’ll need to log into Readlang to use all of its features, such as getting translations of entire phrases and managing your personal word list. Readlang will remember highlighted words from the Croatian texts you’ve read and automatically create a flashcard set for you. When you flip over each flashcard, you will be asked, “Did you remember?” Your choices are “Not at all,” “Almost,” and “Yes.” There’s also an option to type out the word in Croatian when you are given the English translation.

Readlang’s Croatian is still in beta mode, so you may run across a few bugs as you’re using it. Nonetheless, it’s a fairly helpful tool, since it saves you time toggling between Croatian reading material and an online dictionary.

Croatian Social Media

There are reams of Croatian social media accounts out there. However, social media can be rife with misspellings, arcane abbreviations, and poor grammar.

As a language learner, you’ll probably want to focus on accounts that will teach you the language correctly.

Social media from outlets such as newspapers or other, more official sources can be a good choice for learners.

Twitter Accounts

Twitter, in particular, exposes you to snippets of the language, so you can learn in bite-sized pieces.

Twitter can also lead to longer-form content, as well as intense, online discussions. Even if you just browse for a while, you’ll still be learning more Croatian as you go. And, once you feel a little more confident, you can jump into the fray and make a few comments of your own!

Croatian Language School

A mix of Croatian and English-language content. Usually, the English content is presented first in each tweet, with the Croatian translation directly underneath it. A helpful place to start for learners at various levels.

There are frequent tweets and retweets on various topics, with a moderate amount of interaction from other users. Most of the tweets start with a simple question about daily life, so don’t be shy — answer questions that interest you, and be part of the conversation.

mCroatia

A slice of Croatian life, run by the proprietor of a souvenir shop headquartered in Samobor. There’s a lot of lively commentary in Croatian on day-to-day events, and the occasional opinion poll.

Portal hkv.hr

Great for keeping up with current national and international events from a Croatian perspective, this is the Twitter account for the Portal Hrvatskoga Kuliturnog Vijeća national newspaper.

It was inactive for a while and doesn’t have a lot of followers, but it seems to be picking up a little steam. It should be easy to keep up with, even if you don’t have a lot of time to devote to it.

Glas Istre

All the latest news from Pula, Istria, Crotia, with several updates a day. Pithy taglines lead to longer articles on the newspaper’s website.

HDZ

The official Twitter account of the Croatian Democratic Union. Presents Croatian current events with a political spin.

Croatian Radio

Cruise the Croatian airwaves with dozens of online radio stations. Services such as Streema, TuneIn, and SurfMusic will tune you into Croatian news, techno, Top 40, sports coverage, and more.

Even if you have limited understanding at first, Croatian radio will help you hear the true sounds of the language.

Croatian Youtube Channels

Learning Croatian through YouTube can be a very fun and effective way to immerse yourself in the language. These channels teach everything from grammar and vocabulary to common Croatian phrases.

• Croatian Experience with Sanda
• Learn Croatian
• Croatian101Lesson
• Croatian with Anamaria
• Grgo Petrov Learning Croatian Playlist

If you’re looking for more immersive channels to help sharpen your comprehension skills, Easy Languages has this playlist as well as this playlist for Croatian learners. The Color of Art is another immersive channel that focuses Croatian classic literature.

Croatian TV

Croatian television may not be as easy to come by as Telemundo or Univisión, but it’s out there.

Free and Low-Cost Options

There are limited free streaming options online. This page from News Media Lists provides links for instant streaming of a few stations. Independent station Jabuka (Apple) is listed twice. Osječka televizija takes you to the region of Spačva in Eastern Croatia. N1 Hrvatska is a national television station; unfortunately, I tried three different browsers and couldn’t get it to stream.

If you already have a Roku hooked to your TV, you can power it up with the Croatia TV channel for a tiny fee — usually, less than a dollar a month. You’ll usually find news reports and local access-style programming, with interesting cultural features and programs about everyday life. Use repeated broadcasts to improve your understanding of the Croatian content, catching words and phrases you may have missed on your initial viewing.

Get more out of an existing Amazon Prime subscription by searching for Croatian programming on Prime Instant Video. Although some of what you find will be travel shows set in Croatia — or other programming only tangentially related to the country or its language — it’s worth a look. As of this writing, Amazon Prime had at least a handful of movies, TV series, and shorts in Croatian. Some of them have mandatory English subtitles, but some are just in Croatian.

Premium Croatian Television

If you’re at the point in your Croatian learning journey where you feel like it’s worth the investment, there are several subscription services for Croatian broadcasts with broader, less repetitive content. Some of them have a free trial period, so you can see what you’re getting before you make an investment.

In early 2018, National Croatian broadcaster HRT made a new channel available for Croatian speakers living abroad. HRT 5 is available as a satellite service in Europe. It can be watched as a subscription service in New Zealand, Australia, and North America. These subscription packages, combining several television and radio stations, come at a heftier price tag than Roku or Amazon’s offerings. However, if you’re an intermediate learner looking for content that can propel you into advanced Croatian, you might consider this option.

Try to find television shows that match your interests. You’re more likely to watch if the topic is something you care about. If the presentation is absorbing enough, you’ll start to forget that you’re watching it in Croatian.

Try different kinds of programming to keep it interesting. This will also increase your exposure to specialized Croatian vocabulary and different registers of the language.

When it comes to learning Croatian, we might say, “Orah ima tvrdu ljusku.” This literally means that the “walnut has a hard shell” — and it reminds us that it takes dedication to get to something that’s delicious, nourishing, and satisfying.

Croatian might seem like a hard nut to crack at first. But with slow, steady effort, and the variety of learning resources presented here, možete pronaći uspjeh (you can find success).

Why Learning Croatian is Worth It

For me, learning Croatian has been more than just acquiring a language—it’s been about discovering a culture that values connection, tradition, and expression. Whether you’re strolling along the cobblestone streets of Dubrovnik, sharing a meal with locals, or singing along to traditional klapa songs, speaking Croatian enriches every experience.

Croatian invites you to step into a world where language and culture intertwine beautifully. It’s not just about learning words—it’s about embracing the stories, history, and people that make this language so special. If you’re looking for a language that offers both beauty and practicality, Croatian is calling your name.

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