Croatian and Serbian - differences

As I told u I wanna speak them both... but at the moment I'm more into Serbian and I wonder if I say something in Croatian it will be O.K. I know recently were invented many new words in Cro, so I guess there are some important ones in them too. We have 2 Croatians here so u can write here some specifical Croatian words and expressions so we ,foreigners,can distinguish it from the other 3
And before Spring makes some note here... I think learning languages in ATL SHOULD be stimulated Having only one thread for all things is too confusing and u should search it all for something u need. I think thus things would be much more orderes.
But well draga Spring if u think such thread shouldn't exist, u may delete it

i'm also trying to learn both, but usually when I try to speak Croatian I end up speaking Serbo-Croatian. (I can talk in Serbian without using Croatian words, but can't talk in Croatian without using Serbian words) so i can tell you the things i know, and maybe others can add to it. i'm not listing things like "vjetar - vetar" because there are too many and that part is easy.

hrvatski -- srpski

val - talas
tjera - misao
kruh - hleb
kužim - razumem
haha - xaxa
tajnica - sekretarica
naočale - naočare
kemija - hemija
frendica - drugarica

i probably know some others but i forget

oh and months of course. i'll try to do this from memory but i might get some wrong

siječanj - januar
večanj - februar
ožuljak - mart
travanj - april
svibanj - maj
lipanj - juni
srpanj - juli
kolovoz - avgust
rujan - septembar
listopad - oktobar
studeni - novembar
prosinac - decembar

hvala pthalo I know about the months... hah the Croatian word for bread is the same as the Slovenian - kruh

"kužim" is zagreb-dialect, official is "razumijem"
"tjera" i have never heard that word in my life,

Originally Posted by tedinkyyy

O.K. I know recently were invented many new words in Cro,

the only words that were recently invented are those from the it-sector,
like computer = racunalo, keyboard = tipkovnica

than there are old-croatian words, especially in the governmental-world and army that weren't in official use during yugoslavia that were bought back. like armija = vojska, partija = stranka

when we talk about the vocabulary of standard-croatian, from my feeling, i would say that we have over 90% words that are same to serbian or were only one vocal is different. like saradjivati = suradjivati, tacka = tocka and of course the thing with the e->ij, mleko = mlijeko, reka = rijeka

So the ordinary words excluding kruh are like the old Serbo-Croatian ones?
When speaking with Croatian ppl I always doubt if they say it really the same as Serbians Like: baš mi se sviđa ... this is too... balkanic I don't know, it's more natural for the Eastern part of Balkans and Croatians are quite in the west...

"baš mi se sviđa" is perfectly usual in croatian

i translated something into croatian as misao here and was corrected to use tjera. and i know kužim is slang.

in serbian you can say računar for kompjuter but it sounds old fashioned. tipkovnica = tastatura in serbian.


other major differences are about grammar. they use the infinitive more in Croatian than in Serbian. In Serbian you see a lot more sentences like "nemoj da se vratiš" whereas in Croatian they would say "nemoj se vraćat" and the verb treba is different. Na srpskom se ne menja po ličama (people do it but it's not grammatically correct. But it is grammatically correct in Croatian)

another difference: sretan (croatian) - srećan (serbian)

Oh, I'm sorry that you got me wrong
I corrected you here:

csak egy gondolat éli túl,
samo jedan misao me tera da preživim:

samo jedna misao --> feminime
tjera - would be in croatian

with this tjera I meant that tera is tjera in croatian, misao is the same in serbian and croatian

oh! oops. haha, thanks I misunderstood

mostly when you want to say something with "want" - "hocu" or "go somewhere to do something", you use in serbian da + declination in croatian only infinitive, like: "hocu da pijem" -> "hocu piti", "idemo, da se provedemo" -> "idemo se provesti"

...this is the only difference in grammar that i'm aware off right now.
and in terms of vocabulary, there are only a few words that are completely different to serbian, mostly it's just one vocal that is different.

oh yeah, and in terms of spelling,
we don't transcribe foreign names/locations like serbians do, (i find that hilarious)
"geroge bush" is always "george bush" and not "đorđ buš"
and it isn't "igraću", "hodaću" etc. but "igrat ću", "hodat ću"...

And what about the ijekavica? I can't understand where is pronounced ije instead of e...is there any rule? I used to think it can be some orientation for me where we in Bulgarian say ja instead of the Serbian e but it isn't always that way so... I really got confused .

can't really help you with that, i never memorize grammar-rules, i speak every language according to my feeling.
but when i think about it, it seems to me that it's used only as the the first vocal in a word.
though it's not always "ij", sometimes it's only "j"
sena = sjena, pesma = pjesma
this is really hard to distinguish because nobody pronounces the "i" in the "ij" in everyday language,
if you ask me we should get rid of the "ij" and it should be spelled: "rjeka", "mljeko", "tjelo" instead

edit: well, yeah there are also words where it stays "e" like "sreća",
and words where it's not used as the first vocal like "razumijem,
so i guess you will have to memorize a lot

Ali ,hvala lijepa I'll just try to remember it.

Here are some that came into my mind, maybe some further words will following... Probably a few are just synonyms, not pretty sure so feel free to discuss or correct me I have no language pack insalled so I have used chyrilic letter where its spelled diffrent from writing.

rucnik - peskir (turkish origin) ручник - пешкир
zrakoplov - avion
dvogled - dalekozor
cizme - cizme чизме - чижме
kolodvor - zeljeznicka stanica колодвор - жељезничка станица
zarulja - sialica жаруља - сијалица
idem k'sestri - idem kod sestre
hlace - pantalone хлаче - панталаоне
list - hartija
ulica - drum
prijatelj - drug
vilica - viljuska вилица - виљушка
zlica - kasiga жлица - кашига
dvoriste - avlija (turkish origin) двориште - авлија
pas - kuce пас - куче
stoljnak - carsaf (turkish origin) столјнак - чаршаф
pusit - duvat пушит - дуват
skare - makaze шкаре - маказе
naocale - dozle/naocare наочале - џозле
novac - pare/lova
opcina - opstina опчина - општина
putovnica - pasos путобница - пасош
izkaznica - licna karta изказница - лична карта
sugnit - sagnit
orah - oras
hvala - fala
kost - koska
juha - corba (turkish origin) јуха - чорба
grah - pasulj
dobar tek - prijatno
rokvice - paradajz
zrak - vazduh
rikwerts - unazad (germanizam)
ljestvice - lotre
stepeni - gradi
ura - sat/ cas (час) (germanizam) pet uri - pet sati
pjevac - petlo
noktarica - grickalica

Pozz

i've heard osobna karta too in Croatian for lična karta

i thought kuče was female dog and pas was dog or male dog?

grah is bob in Serbian too.

croatian: leća, serbian: sočivo

i haven't heard rokvice, but i've heard rajčica (Croatian) for paradajz (Serbian)

also: vlak - voz

Originally Posted by Zoka

Here are some that came into my mind, maybe some further words will following... Probably a few are just synonyms, not pretty sure so feel free to discuss or correct me I have no language pack insalled so I have used chyrilic letter where its spelled diffrent from writing.

rucnik - peskir (turkish origin) ручник - пешкир
zrakoplov - avion (you can also say avion in cro, but zrakoplov is more correct)
dvogled - dalekozor (you can use both in cro, dalekozor is more common)
cizme - cizme чизме - чижме
kolodvor - zeljeznicka stanica колодвор - жељезничка станица
zarulja - sialica жаруља - сијалица
idem k'sestri - idem kod sestre
hlace - pantalone хлаче - панталаоне
list - hartija (it's list in serbian as well as far as i know)
ulica - drum (it's ulica in serbian as well as far as i know)
prijatelj - drug
vilica - viljuska вилица - виљушка
zlica - kasiga жлица - кашига
dvoriste - avlija (turkish origin) двориште - авлија
pas - kuce (it's pas in serbian as well as far as i know)
stoljnak - carsaf (turkish origin) столјнак - чаршаф
pusit - duvat пушит - дуват
skare - makaze шкаре - маказе
naocale - dozle/naocare наочале - џозле
novac - pare/lova (it's novac is serbian as well, and pare/lova is also cro)
opcina - opstina опчина - општина
putovnica - pasos путобница - пасош
izkaznica - licna karta изказница - лична карта
sagnuti - sagnit
orah - oras (orah is serbian as well)
hvala - fala (hvala is serbian as well, and i'm pretty sure that fala isn't correct)
kost - koska (kost is serbian as well)
juha - corba (turkish origin) јуха - чорба
grah - pasulj
dobar tek - prijatno
rajcica - paradajz
zrak - vazduh
unazad
ljestvice - lotre
stepeni - gradi (what is this supposed to mean, english ?)
sat
pijetao - petlo
grickalica

Pozz

i corrected what seemed wrong to me, which is like 80% of it

Originally Posted by Zoka

rikwerts - unazad (germanizam)
ura - sat/ cas (час) (germanizam) pet uri - pet sati

haha, are you kidding me, rikwerts ?

female dog is kuja I think, but not sure about.

And You are right, "rajcice" for "paradajz" - thanks for correcting me

About "grah" I am almost pretty sure serbian people doesn't use "grah", but hmm you never now.

Never heard of "socivo" - intresting!


Few more:
nausnice - minduse наушнице - минџуше
zrakomlat - helikopter

Originally Posted by Zoka

zrakomlat - helikopter

lmao, where do you pull those out ?
it's "helikopter" and nothing else.

i think this stems from a serbian joke,
i hope you won't claim next that "okolo-trbusni-pantalo-drzac" is a croatian word

edit. oh, i found out that "zrakomlat" was actually proposed as a word in the 90'ies, but thankfully it wasn't accepted and didn't find it's way into our language.

Originally Posted by miki444

i hope you won't claim next that "okolo-trbusni-pantalo-drzac" is a croatian word

I like this one: Medjunozno guralo sa dva napuhala = bicycle

Originally Posted by Zoka

zarulja - sijalica
zlica - kasika

šuti/ćuti - shut up!
krumpir/krompir - potatoe
peršin/peršun - parsley
pijat/tanjur/tanjir - plate